Topic summary
NURB

Extracted from the Wikipedia article Non-uniform rational B-spline.
Degree elevation
A NURBS curve of a particular degree can always be represented by a NURBS curve of higher degree. This is frequently used when combining separate NURBS curves, e.g., when creating a NURBS surface interpolating between a set of NURBS curves or when unifying adjacent curves. In the process, the different curves should be brought to the same degree, usually the maximum degree of the set of curves. The process is known as degree elevation.