On Discrete Constant Mean Curvature Surfaces

Recently, a curvature theory for polyhedral surfaces has been established that associates with each face a mean curvature value computed from areas and mixed areas of that face and its corresponding Gaussian image face. Therefore, a study of constant mean curvature (cmc) surfaces requires studying pairs of polygons with some constant nonvanishing value of the discrete mean curvature for all faces. We focus on meshes where all faces are planar quadrilaterals or planar hexagons. We show an incidence geometric characterization of a pair of parallel quadrilaterals having a discrete mean curvature value of ?1. This characterization yields an integrability condition for a mesh being a Gaussian image mesh of a discrete cmc surface. Thus, we can use these geometric results for the construction of discrete cmc surfaces. In the special case where all faces have a circumcircle, we establish a discrete Weierstrass-type representation for discrete cmc surfaces.