  In this paper, we show that many complex patterns, which characterize the
decorative style of many artisanal objects, can be generated by the recursive
application of only four operators. Each operator is derived from tracing the
isolines or the integral curves of geodesics fields generated from selected
seeds on the surface. Based on this formulation, we present an interactive
application that lets designers model complex recursive patterns directly on
the object surface, without relying on parametrization. We support interaction
on commodity hardware on meshes of a few million triangles, by combining light
data structures together with an efficient approximate graph-based geodesic
solver. We validate our approach by matching decoration styles from real-world
photos, by analyzing the speed and accuracy of our geodesic solver, and by
validating the interface with a user study.
