Unduloid describes a family of surface of revolution. Let a conics section roll on a line. Its focus traces out a curve. This curve revolved around the line generates the unduloid. The above image shows an unduloid where the rolling curve is an ellipse. It has a mean curvature of 1. If the rolling curve is a parabola, a helicoid will be generated, and has mean curvature of 0.
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Page created: 2004. © 2004 by Xah Lee.