Fitting scattered data on spherelike surfaces using tensor products of trigonometric and polynomial splines

Summary A method is presented for fitting a function defined on a general smooth spherelike surfaceS, given measurements on the function at a set of scattered points lying onS. The approximating surface is constructed by mapping the surface onto a rectangle, and using a tensor-product of polynomial splines with periodic trigonometric splines. The use of trigonometric splines allows a convenient solution of the problem of assuring that the resulting surface is continuous and has continuous tangent planes at all points onS. Two alternative algorithms for computing the coefficients of the tensor fit are presented; one based on global least-squares, and the other on the use of local quasi-interpolators. The approximation order of the method is established, and the numerical performance of the two algorithms is compared.Supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant DMS-8902331 and by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation