Paul de Casteljau

Paul de Casteljau
Born19 November 1930
Besançon
Died24 March 2022 (aged 91)
Versailles
NationalityFrance
Alma materÉcole Normale Supérieure
Known forde Casteljau algorithm
Bézier curve
Bézier surface
Computer-aided manufacturing
Blossom (functional)

Paul de Casteljau (19 November 1930 – 24 March 2022) was 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, leading to the curves widely known as Bézier curves.

He studied at École Normale Supérieure, and worked at Citroën from 1958 until his retirement in 1992. When he arrived there, "Specialists admitted that all electrical, electronic and mechanical problems had more or less been solved. All—except for one single formality which made up for 5%, but certainly not for 20% of the problem; in other words, how to express component parts by equations."[1] A short autobiographic sketch goes back to the early 1990s,[2] a longer autobiography talks about his education and life at Citroën until his retirement. [3] He continued publishing in retirement, which led to three monographs and ten academic papers, most of his publications written in French.[4]

  1. ^ de Casteljau, Paul de Faget (1999). "De Casteljau's autobiography: My time at Citroën" (PDF). Computer Aided Geometric Design. 16 (7): 583–586. doi:10.1016/S0167-8396(99)00024-2.
  2. ^ Appendix B in: Andreas Müller, "Neuere Gedanken des Monsieur Paul de Faget de Casteljau", 1995; pdf; 42MB
  3. ^ Mueller, Andreas (May 2024). "Paul de Casteljau: The story of my adventure". Computer Aided Geometric Design. 110 (102278): 1–44. doi:10.1016/j.cagd.2024.102278.
  4. ^ Mueller, Andreas (September 2024). "A tour d'horizon of de Casteljau's work". Computer Aided Geometric Design. 113 (102366): 1–56. doi:10.1016/j.cagd.2024.102366.