Abstract: A system that includes a pop-up graphical user interface that includes menu bars overlapping marking menu zones. The interface pops up at the current position of the cursor when the space bar is held down. The menu bars are positioned around a central marking zone with the common menu bars located above the central zone and task specific menu bars located below the central zone. The common application menu bar is positioned outer most and the common window menu bar is located inner most. The menu bars are sized in a “stair-step” pattern and the commands therein are left and right justified to fill the menu bar evenly. The menu bar menu items are accessed just like menu bar items typically found at the top of windows. The menu bars mimic the menu bars that a user may need to use during tasks that users typically perform using the menu bars found in application windows.

Abstract: A method of converting a subdivision surface to a NURBS representation. Adjacent faces of a subdivision surface are merged into a quadrilateral region, and vertices of the rectangular regions are used to generate a NURBS surface. The merging of faces reduces the number of vertices needed. Faces should not be merged if they do not comprise a quadrilateral region; if they cross an extraordinary point; if they cross a crease; or a face has already been merged. Imaginary vertices can be generated if not enough vertices are present for a face in the subdivision surface to create a corresponding NURBS patch for that face.

Abstract: The present invention assigns a unique name or identifier to a face of a subdivision surface that can be stored and manipulated as a fixed length integer. The face name representation includes a base face index field identifying the base mesh face from which the face being named is derived, a vertex index field identifying the base mesh vertex from which the face is derived, a level field identifying the level of the subdivision face and a path field that identifies the path to the face. The vertices and edges of each face can also be assigned unique names.