In Siggraph '88 (24 years ago this week) there was a great article by Phillip J. Barry and Ronald N. Goldman titled "A Recursive Evaluation Algorithm for a Class of Catmull-Rom Splines".

In the article they detail a recursive approach to evaluate a CR spline. Representing it this way allows for curve parameters to be added (thus making it Non-Uniform), altering the trajectory of the curve (similar to the Tension parameter in a Cardinal or Kochanek Bartels spline).

I'm in the process of translating the formula but it's usually harder than it looks.

Has anyone implemented this? How much faster is it? Is the algorithm available in C++ form?

Thanks in advance.

CRD

If the paper is from 1988, whatever supposed performance advantages this was supposed to have are probably irrelevant. We are talking about a period where many platforms may not have had hardware multipliers, so evaluating a cubic polynomial could be expensive. These days it's dirt cheap, so you don't need to be fancy. Being fancy may actually hurt.

Implement your splines in the most straight-forward way possible, and optimize only if a profiler tells you you should.

Performance was not the main reason, though I'm curious how much faster it will be.

In order to achieve Centripetal Parameterization (from a 2010 paper "Parameterization and Applications of Catmull-Rom Curves"), we need a recursive approach to the Catmull Rom algorithm. That allows for arbitrary t (or s) values, which allows shape parameters.

We need a Catmull Rom spline where the control points represent the points of highest curvature (please see attached image).

I think many make the assumption that is the default when it's not.