High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model commonly used in computer graphics for generating and representing curves and surfaces which offers great flexibility and precision for handling both analytic and freeform shapes. Development of NURBS began in the 1950s by engineers who were in need of a mathematically precise representation of freeform surfaces like those used for ship hulls, aerospace exterior surfaces, and car bodies, which could be exactly reproduced whenever technically needed. Prior representations of this kind of surface only existed as a single physical model created by a designer.