Anton Sherwood wrote:
> 
> Is there an easy way to approximate a minimal surface (soap film)
> spanning a skew polygon?
> 
> Assume the edges are all straight.
> 
> I need to fit pentagons and hexagons, neither of which seem obvious
> candidates for a seamless bicubic patch.

In general, minimal surfaces are a nasty problem mathematically.  If you
can approximate the particular surface with a polynomial, pov will do up
to seventh degree polynomial surfaces.  If you can come up with a
suitable equation, you may also be able to do it with the isosurface
patch.  In general, however, your best bet (if you do not require strict
mathematical accuracy) is probably to lay out the polygonal skeleton
with sPatch and pull and tweak the surface until it looks about right. 
As a little tip, use quadrilaterals instead of triangles in sPatch (add
points if needed) to get a better result.

Jerry Anning
cle### [at] dholcom

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