Generic Immersions of the Two-Sphere to R3 and Their Skeletons

Let f:S ² ↬ R ³ be a generic smooth immersion. The skeleton of f is the following triple (Γ, D, p): Γ ⊂ R ³ is the 1-polyhedron of singular points of f, D = f⁻¹(Γ) ⊂ S ² is also a 1-polyhedron, and p : D → Γ, x ↦ f(x), is the projection. For triples of the form (D,Γ,p), where Γ has at most four vertices, we give an iff-condition under which the triple is the skeleton of a smooth immersion f : S ² ↬ R ³. Bibliography: 4 titles. __________ Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 299, 2003, pp. 300–313.