International Business Machines Corporation

Dieter Lattermann

Ulrich Schauer

A computer system is described for producing and representing contour lines of a saddle surface. The contour lines are obtained by a plane intersecting the saddle surface. Depending upon whether the intersecting plane is positioned above or below a saddle point of the saddle surface, two different contour lines result. By means of the height of the saddle point, the computer system is able to decide which of the possible contour lines are the correct ones for the particular case. The contour lines are determined in the form of two intersections, with intersections belonging together being stored in pairs in the computer system. By rearranging, exchanging, concatenating, etc. these intersection pairs, neighbourhood data is obtained defining the neighbour associated with each intersection. By means of this neighbourhood data the computer system is able to represent the polygons made up of contour lines on, say, an image screen.

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Walldorf, Germany

Dieter Lattermann