Evolute

The blue parabola is the involute of the red curve. The red curve is the evolute of the blue parabola, and can be constructed as the locus of all centers of curvature of the blue parabola.
The evolute of a curve (in this case, an ellipse) is the envelope of its normals.

In the differential geometry of curves, the evolute of a curve is the locus of all its centers of curvature. That is to say that when the center of curvature of each point on a curve is drawn, the resultant shape will be the evolute of that curve. The evolute of a circle is therefore a single point at its center. Equivalently, an evolute is the envelope of the normals to a curve.

The evolute of a curve, a surface, or more generally a submanifold, is the caustic of the normal map. Let M be a smooth, regular submanifold in Rn. For each point p in M and each vector v, based at p and normal to M, we associate the point p + v. This defines a Lagrangian map, called the normal map. The caustic of the normal map is the evolute of M.

Evolutes are closely connected to involutes: A curve is the evolute of any of its involutes.

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