Paul de Casteljau

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Paul de Casteljau (born 1930 in Besançon, France.) is a French physicist and mathematician. In 1959, while working at Citroën, he developed an algorithm for evaluating calculations on a certain family of curves, which would later be formalized and popularized by engineer Pierre Bézier, and the curves called Bézier curves. De Casteljau's algorithm is widely used, with some modifications, as it is the most robust and numerically stable method for evaluating polynomials. Other methods, such as Horner's method and forward differencing, are faster for calculating single points but are less robust. De Casteljau's algorithm is still very fast for subdividing a Bézier curve into two curve segments at an arbitrary parametric location.

References

• (French) Paul De Casteljau, Courbes à pôles, INPI, 1959^{[clarification needed (the patent number would be welcome)]}
• (French) Paul De Casteljau, Surfaces à pôles, INPI, 1963^{[clarification needed (the patent number would be welcome)]}
• (French) Mathématiques et CAO. Vol. 2 : Formes à pôles, Hermes, 1986
• (French) Les quaternions: Hermes, 1987
• (French) Le Lissage: Hermes, 1990
• POLoynomials, POLar Forms, and InterPOLation, September 1992, Mathematical methods in computer aided geometric design II, Academic Press Professional, Inc.
• Andreas Müller, "Neuere Gedanken des Monsieur Paul de Faget de Casteljau", 1995
• "de Casteljau's autobiography: My time at Citroën". Computer Aided Geometric Design 16 (7): 583–586. August 1999. doi:10.1016/S0167-8396(99)00024-2. 

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