Construction of spherical spline quasi-interpolants based on blossoming

A general theory of quasi-interpolants based on quadratic spherical Powell-Sabin splines on spherical triangulations of a sphere-like surface S is developed by using polar forms. As application, various families of discrete and differential quasi-interpolants reproducing quadratic spherical Bézier-Bernstein polynomials or the whole space of the spherical Powell-Sabin quadratic splines of class C¹ are presented.     

On the construction of local quadratic spline quasi-interpolants on bounded rectangular domains

In this paper local bivariate C¹$C^1$ spline quasi-interpolants on a criss-cross triangulation of bounded rectangular domains are considered and a computational procedure for their construction is proposed. Numerical and graphical tests are provided.     

Fair upper bounds for the curvature in univariate convex interpolation

In convex interpolation the curvature of the interpolants should be as small as possible. We attack this problem by treating interpolation subject to bounds on the curvature. In view of the concexity the lower bound is equal to zero while the upper bound is assumed to be piecewise constant. The upper bounds are called fair with respect to a function class if the interpolation problem becomes solvable for all data sets in strictly convex position. We derive fair a priori bounds for classes of quadraticC ¹, cubicC ², and quarticC ³ splines on refined grids.     

The fundamentality of sets of ridge functions

Summary We investigate the fundamentality of the set of all continuous ridge functions in the spaceC( ⁿ ) as well as inC(X) for a general Banach space,X. Both positive and negative results are obtained. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the fundamentality are given for certain sets of ridge functions inC( ⁿ ).     

Cubic Spline Prewavelets on the Four-Directional Mesh

Dedicated to Professor M. J. D. Powell on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday and his retirement. In this paper, we design differentiable, two-dimensional, piecewise polynomial cubic prewavelets of particularly small compact support. They are given in closed form, and provide stable, orthogonal decompositions of L ² (R ² ) . In particular, the splines we use in our prewavelet constructions give rise to stable bases of spline spaces that contain all cubic polynomials, whereas the more familiar box spline constructions cannot reproduce all cubic polynomials, unless resorting to a box spline of higher polynomial degree.     

Error estimates in W 2,∞-semi-norms for discrete interpolating D 2-splines

We derive error estimates in W^2,∞-semi-norms for multivariate discrete D²-splines that interpolate an unknown function at the vertices of given triangulations. These results are widely based on the construction of approximation operators and linear projectors onto piecewise polynomial spaces having weakly stable local bases.     

Thinning algorithms for scattered data interpolation

Multistep interpolation of scattered data by compactly supported radial basis functions requires hierarchical subsets of the data. This paper analyzes thinning algorithms for generating evenly distributed subsets of scattered data in a given domain in ℝ ^d .     

Convex interval interpolation with cubic splines

A necessary and sufficient criterion is presented under which the problem of the convex interval interpolation with cubicC ¹-splines has at least one solution. The criterion is given as an algorithm which turns out to be effective.Dedicated to Professor Julius Albrecht on the occasion of his 60th birthday.     

S-convex,monotone, and positive interpolation with rational bicubic splines of C2-continuity

In this paper we deal with shape preserving interpolation of data sets given on rectangular grids. The aim is to show that there exist spline interpolants of the continuity classC ² which areS-convex, monotone, or positive if the data sets have these properties. This is done by using particular rational bicubic splines defined on the grids introduced by the data. Interpolants of the desired type can be constructed by a simple search procedure.     

Lattices on simplicial partitions

In this paper, (d+1)-pencil lattices on simplicial partitions in R^d are studied. The barycentric approach naturally extends the lattice from a simplex to a simplicial partition, providing a continuous piecewise polynomial interpolant over the extended lattice. The number of degrees of freedom is equal to the number of vertices of the simplicial partition. The constructive proof of this fact leads to an efficient computer algorithm for the design of a lattice.     

Lattices on simplicial partitions which are not simply connected

In this paper, (d+1)-pencil lattices on simplicial partitions in R^d, which are not simply connected, are studied. It is shown, how the fact that a partition is not simply connected can be used to increase the flexibility of a lattice. A local modification algorithm is developed also to deal with slight partition topology changes that may appear afterwards a lattice has already been constructed.     

On near-best discrete quasi-interpolation on a four-directional mesh

Spline quasi-interpolants are practical and effective approximation operators. In this paper, we construct QIs with optimal approximation orders and small infinity norms called near-best discrete quasi-interpolants which are based on Ω-splines, i.e. B-splines with octagonal supports on the uniform four-directional mesh of the plane. These quasi-interpolants are exact on some space of polynomials and they minimize an upper bound of their infinity norms depending on a finite number of free parameters. We show that this problem has always a solution, in general nonunique. Concrete examples of such quasi-interpolants are given in the last section.     

Error saturation in Gaussian radial basis functions on a finite interval

Radial basis function (RBF) interpolation is a “meshless” strategy with great promise for adaptive approximation. One restriction is “error saturation” which occurs for many types of RBFs including Gaussian RBFs of the form ?(x;α,h)=exp(−α²(x/h)²): in the limit h→0 for fixed α, the error does not converge to zero, but rather to E_S(α). Previous studies have theoretically determined the saturation error for Gaussian RBF on an infinite, uniform interval and for the same with a single point omitted. (The gap enormously increases E_S(α).) We show experimentally that the saturation error on the unit interval, x∈[−1,1], is about 0.06exp(−0.47/α²)‖f‖_∞ — huge compared to the O(2π/α²)exp(−π²/[4α²]) saturation error for a grid with one point omitted. We show that the reason the saturation is so large on a finite interval is that it is equivalent to an infinite grid which is uniform except for a gap of many points. The saturation error can be avoided by choosing α?1, the “flat limit”, but the condition number of the interpolation matrix explodes as O(exp(π²/[4α²])). The best strategy is to choose the largest α which yields an acceptably small saturation error: If the user chooses an error tolerance δ, then .     

Approximation order of interpolatory nonlinear subdivision schemes

Linear interpolatory subdivision schemes of C^r smoothness have approximation order at least r+1. The present paper extends this result to nonlinear univariate schemes which are in proximity with linear schemes in a certain specific sense. The results apply to nonlinear subdivision schemes in Lie groups and in surfaces which are obtained from linear subdivision schemes. We indicate how to extend the results to the multivariate case.     

Limit problems for interpolation by analytic radial basis functions

Interpolation problems for analytic radial basis functions like the Gaussian and inverse multiquadrics can degenerate in two ways: the radial basis functions can be scaled to become increasingly flat, or the data points coalesce in the limit while the radial basis functions stay fixed. Both cases call for a careful regularization, which, if carried out explicitly, yields a preconditioning technique for the degenerating linear systems behind these interpolation problems. This paper deals with both cases. For the increasingly flat limit, we recover results by Larsson and Fornberg together with Lee, Yoon, and Yoon concerning convergence of interpolants towards polynomials. With slight modifications, the same technique can also handle scenarios with coalescing data points for fixed radial basis functions. The results show that the degenerating local Lagrange interpolation problems converge towards certain Hermite–Birkhoff problems. This is an important prerequisite for dealing with approximation by radial basis functions adaptively, using freely varying data sites.     

The Christoffel function for the Hermite weight is bell-shaped

We show that the Christoffel function λ_n associated with the Hermite weight function w_H(x)=exp(−x²) is bell-shaped. As a consequence, we describe completely how the weights in a Gauss-type quadrature formula associated with w_H(x) are arranged in magnitude.     

Error estimates in Sobolev spaces for interpolating thin plate splines under tension

This paper discusses _Lp$L_p$-error estimates for interpolation by thin plate spline under tension of a function in the classical Sobolev space on an open bounded set with a Lipschitz-continuous boundary. A property of convergence is also given when the set of interpolating points becomes more and more dense.