Approximating tensor product Bézier surfaces with tangent plane continuity

We present a simple method for degree reduction of tensor product Bézier surfaces with tangent plane continuity in L₂-norm. Continuity constraints at the four corners of surfaces are considered, so that the boundary curves preserve endpoints continuity of any order α. We obtain matrix representations for the control points of the degree reduced surfaces by the least-squares method. A simple optimization scheme that minimizes the perturbations of some related control points is proposed, and the surface patches after adjustment are C^∞ continuous in the interior and G¹ continuous at the common boundaries. We show that this scheme is applicable to surface patches defined on chessboard-like domains.