In describing the tool path for a certain CNC machine, it is often required to approximate Bezier curves by are splines with the number of are segments as small as possible. We give a new method for approximating quadratic Bezier curves by G(1) are splines with smaller number of are segments than the biarc method. Numerical results are given to illustrate the efficiency of the algorithm for the previously used examples of quadratic Bezier curves. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.