Patents by Inventor William C. Blank

William C. Blank has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5506785
    Abstract: The invention is directed toward a method and apparatus for generating hollow and non-hollow solid representations of an object represented in terms of volumetric data. The volumetric data represents the object in terms of a plurality of voxels, each voxel having a plurality of voxel faces that interconnect to enclose a voxel volume that represents a portion of the object volume or a portion of the volume of a background substance. A surface representation is generated that represents the object with a plurality of surface voxel faces defining a surface that encloses the voxels whose volumes represent the object volume. An array of control points is formed from the surface representation, each control point corresponding to a surface voxel face. A NURB based solid representation of the object is generated from the array of control points. The NURB based solid representation can be used to drive a CAD/CAM system to generate a replica of the object or can be used for various other purposes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 1993
    Date of Patent: April 9, 1996
    Assignee: Dover Systems Corporation
    Inventors: William C. Blank, Rodney D. Jacobson