Minimal surfaces

Somehow I knew this was going to be difficult, because whatever nature does incidentally becomes quite tricky
to get it mimicked ... ;)

Without beeing a NURBS expert at all and just for the reason of interest, if such calculations for minimal surfaces
are realized in triangular meshed nodes, wouldn't it be possible to use such nodes as an intermediate result and
acting as a control mesh by which a final NURBS surface could approximate itself to a minimal surface?

... wow, by chance I just stumbled into this plug-in for sketchup called 'Soap Skin & Bubble' which seems to be
based on the triangular meshed nodes you mentioned. The plug-in and it's functionality is shown in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcOrlX5wgLE

Actually this plugin does what I was thinking of and a review of it can be found here:

http://sketchuppluginreviews.com/2010/02/02/soap-skin-bubble-tool-google-sketchup-review/

So, if I am not mistaken, the math behind this minimal surface model is done, the plug-in is free of charge,
what could mean, that the author may happily give an inside view to his work to others...

And if a NURBS surfaces could be controlled by a polygon mesh ... - Voilà! ...

> ... so it would require a considerable amount of specialized development to even try it.

... this quote may get reduced to a fraction of its meaning... ;)

By the way, the author of that plug-in is German so let me know if you need any assistance in that language... ;)

Jan