torchnodo 1.1.0

Uniform (Rational) B-Splines in PyTorch

torchnodo

torchnodo is an implementation of uniform (rational) B-splines in PyTorch. It provides a small, purely functional API for evaluating B-spline curves and surfaces and their parametric derivatives, with full autograd and GPU support.

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Features

• control points for curves and surfaces of arbitrary dimension (not limited to 2D/3D)
• arbitrary B-spline polynomial degree P
• analytical parametric differentiation or any order D ≤ P
• periodic and non-periodic support, with clamped and unclamped knot vectors
• rational variants (weighted control points) for both curves and surfaces
• optimized surface evaluation on a regular U × V grid (bspline_surface_grid) and on scattered (u, v) samples (bspline_surface)
• midpoint uniform knot refinement for curves and surfaces (rational and non-rational)
• full autograd support — differentiable with respect to control points and rational weights
• full GPU support with dtype and device correctness
• zero runtime dependencies beyond PyTorch itself

Out of scope:

• non-uniform knots (not a NURBS implementation in the general sense)
• degree elevation
• explicit surface-of-revolution, swept surface, or other higher-level constructors
• B-splines volumes or higher order manifolds

Examples

A 2D B-Spline curve

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import torch

from torchnodo import bspline_curve

# Evaluate a 2D curve of degree 3 with 5 random control points
control_points = torch.rand(5, 2)
curve = bspline_curve(
    u=torch.linspace(0, 1, 200),
    points=control_points,
    degree=3,
    order=0,
    periodic=False,
    clamped=True,
)

# Plot the curve value (0-th order derivative) and its control polygon
plt.plot(curve[0, :, 0], curve[0, :, 1])
plt.plot(control_points[:, 0], control_points[:, 1], "o--", alpha=0.4)
plt.show()

A 1D B-Spline surface

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import torch

from torchnodo import bspline_surface_grid

# Evaluate a 1D surface of degree (3, 2) with 5x4 random control points
u = torch.linspace(0, 1, 60)
v = torch.linspace(0, 1, 60)
surface = bspline_surface_grid(
    u,
    v,
    points=torch.rand(5, 4, 1),
    degree=(3, 2),
    order=(0, 0),
    periodic=(False, False),
    clamped=(True, True),
)

z = surface[0, 0, :, :, 0]

U, V = torch.meshgrid(u, v, indexing="ij")

# Plot the surface over its U x V parametric grid
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection="3d")
ax.plot_surface(U, V, z, cmap="cividis")
ax.set(xlabel="U", ylabel="V", zlabel="Z")
plt.show()

Browse all examples

All runnable examples live in the examples/ directory:

• example_basic_curve.py
• example_basic_surface.py
• example_basis_functions.py
• example_fit_curve.py
• example_fit_surface.py
• example_refine_curve.py
• example_refine_surface.py
• example_curve_2d_animation.py
• example_surface_1d_animation.py
• example_surface_3d_animation.py

Installation

Install with pip:

pip install torchnodo

Or, in a uv project:

uv add torchnodo

⚠️ PyTorch is not declared as a dependency. torchnodo requires PyTorch at runtime, but the pyproject.toml of torchnodo intentionally does not list torch so that you can install the variant of PyTorch you want (CPU-only, CUDA, ROCm, etc.) without interference.

Design choices

• Purely functional API

There are no classes, no state, and no mutation. Every public entry point is a free function that takes control points and configuration and returns tensors. This keeps the API composable with torch.nn.Module, autograd, torch.compile, and functional transforms without wrapping.

• Almost loop-free code

B-spline evaluation is expressed in terms of tensor operations and runs a batched de Boor-style recursion. The only Python-level loops are over B-spline degree P and parametric derivative order D, both of which are static — they are fixed at call time and typically small (≤ 5). There is no Python-level loop over parameter values or control points.

• Arbitrary control-point dimension

The trailing C axis of points tensors is a pure "batch of coordinates" and is never inspected. Typical uses are 2D or 3D control points for curves and 3D control points for surfaces, but any C ≥ 1 is supported.

• Joint evaluation of values and parametric derivatives

The "value" of a function is really its zero-th order derivative. So when evaluating a spline, request the number of parametric derivatives you need with the order= argument. The API returns a tensor of shape:

( order of parametric derivation, parametric samples, dimension of control points )

which in practice translates to:

Function	Output tensor shape
bspline_curve	(order+1, U, C)
bspline_surface_grid	(order[0] + 1, order[1] + 1, U, V, C)
bspline_surface	(order[0] + 1, order[1] + 1, UV, C)

• Uniform knots only

Knots vectors are either uniform clamped or uniform unclamped. They are never stored as tensors and remain implicit in the code.

• Normal vs grid surface

Two surface evaluators are provided:

1. bspline_surface_grid(u, v, points, ...) evaluates on the full Cartesian product u × v. This is the fast path for rendering, plotting, or any dense grid use case: basis functions in u and v are computed independently and combined with a single einsum.
2. bspline_surface(uv, points, ...) evaluates on arbitrary scattered (u, v) pairs. Use it when surface samples are not on a grid.

Nomenclature

• degree (P, Q): the polynomial degree of the B-spline.
• order (D, E): the parametric derivative order. Unrelated to spline order in some textbooks (which use "order" to mean degree + 1).

API

Evaluation

curve = bspline_curve(u, points, *, degree, order, periodic, clamped)
curve = bspline_rational_curve(u, points, weights, *, degree, order, periodic, clamped)

surface = bspline_surface(uv, points, *, degree, order, periodic, clamped)
surface = bspline_rational_surface(uv, points, weights, *, degree, order, periodic, clamped)

surface = bspline_surface_grid(u, v, points, *, degree, order, periodic, clamped)
surface = bspline_rational_surface_grid(u, v, points, weights, *, degree, order, periodic, clamped)

Common arguments:

• u / v / uv: parameter values in [0, 1]. For curves, u is shape (U,). For scattered surface evaluation, uv is shape (UV, 2). For grid surface evaluation, u and v are independent 1D tensors.
• points: control points.
  • curves: shape (K, C)
  • surfaces: shape (K, L, C)
• weights (rational variants only): positive weights with shape (K,) for curves and (K, L) for surfaces.
• degree: polynomial degree. For curves, an int. For surfaces, a tuple[int, int] of (P, Q).
• order: highest parametric derivative order to compute. For curves, an int in [0, P]. For surfaces, a tuple[int, int] with each component in [0, P] / [0, Q].
• periodic: whether the curve/surface is periodic. For surfaces, a tuple[bool, bool] — the two parametric axes are independent, so surfaces can be periodic in u only, v only, both (torus-like), or neither.
• clamped: whether the knot vector is clamped (boundary knots repeated P times so the curve passes through the first and last control point) or unclamped (uniformly extended on both sides). For surfaces, a tuple[bool, bool].

Typical periodic / clamped combinations

curve type	periodic	clamped
open, interpolating	False	True
open, "floating"	False	False
closed loop	True	False

periodic=True, clamped=True works but is not a very natural configuration.

Control points refinement

points = refine_curve_points(points, degree, *, periodic, clamped)
points, weights = refine_rational_curve_points(points, weights, degree, *, periodic, clamped)

points = refine_surface_points(points, degree, *, periodic, clamped)
points, weights = refine_rational_surface_points(points, weights, degree, *, periodic, clamped)

Each refinement call inserts one knot at the midpoint of every inner knot span, along every parametric axis. The returned control points define a curve/surface that is geometrically identical to the original; only the control polygon / control grid densifies.

Midpoint refinement requires an unclamped knot vector.

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License

MIT License.