Partition of unity interpolation using stable kernel-based techniques

In this paper we propose a new stable and accurate approximation technique which is extremely effective for interpolating large scattered data sets. The Partition of Unity (PU) method is performed considering Radial Basis Functions (RBFs) as local approximants and using locally supported weights. In particular, the approach consists in computing, for each PU subdomain, a stable basis. Such technique, taking advantage of the local scheme, leads to a significant benefit in terms of stability, especially for flat kernels. Furthermore, an optimized searching procedure is applied to build the local stable bases, thus rendering the method more efficient

Radial functions on compact support

In this paper, radial basis functions that are compactly supported and give rise to positive definite interpolation matrices for scattered data are discussed. They are related to the well-known thin plate spline radial functions which are highly useful in applications for gridfree approximation methods. Also, encouraging approximation results for the compactly supported radial functions are show

Convexity and solvability for compactly supported radial basis functions with different shapes

It is known that interpolation with radial basis functions of the same shape can guarantee a non-singular interpolation matrix, whereas little is known when one uses various shapes. In this paper, we prove that a class of compactly supported radial basis functions are convex on a certain region; based on this local convexity and ready local geometrical property of the interpolation points, we construct a sufficient condition which guarantees diagonally dominant interpolation matrices for radial basis functions interpolation with various shapes. The proof is constructive and can be used to design algorithms directly. Real applications from 3D surface reconstruction are used\ud to verify the results

On the role of polynomials in RBF-FD approximations: I. Interpolation and accuracy

Radial basis function-generated finite difference (RBF-FD) approximations generalize classical grid-based finite differences (FD) from lattice-based to scattered node layouts. This greatly increases the geometric flexibility of the discretizations and makes it easier to carry out local refinement in critical areas. Many different types of radial functions have been considered in this RBF-FD context. In this study, we find that (i) polyharmonic splines (PHS) in conjunction with supplementary polynomials provide a very simple way to defeat stagnation (also known as saturation) error and (ii) give particularly good accuracy for the tasks of interpolation and derivative approximations without the hassle of determining a shape parameter. In follow-up studies, we will focus on how to best use these hybrid RBF polynomial bases for FD approximations in the contexts of solving elliptic and hyperbolic type PDEs.The presented research was supported by the NSF grants DMS-0934317, OCI-0904599 and by Shell International Exploration and Production, Inc. Victor Bayona was a post-doctoral fellow funded by the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) during the development of this research. NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation

An RBF-FD closest point method for solving PDEs on surfaces

Partial differential equations (PDEs) on surfaces appear in many applications throughout the natural and applied sciences. The classical closest point method (Ruuth and Merriman, J. Comput. Phys. 227(3):1943-1961, [2008]) is an embedding method for solving PDEs on surfaces using standard finite difference schemes. In this paper, we formulate an explicit closest point method using finite difference schemes derived from radial basis functions (RBF-FD). Unlike the orthogonal gradients method (Piret, J. Comput. Phys. 231(14):4662-4675, [2012]), our proposed method uses RBF centers on regular grid nodes. This formulation not only reduces the computational cost but also avoids the ill-conditioning from point clustering on the surface and is more natural to couple with a grid based manifold evolution algorithm (Leung and Zhao, J. Comput. Phys. 228(8):2993-3024, [2009]). When compared to the standard finite difference discretization of the closest point method, the proposed method requires a smaller computational domain surrounding the surface, resulting in a decrease in the number of sampling points on the surface. In addition, higher-order schemes can easily be constructed by increasing the number of points in the RBF-FD stencil. Applications to a variety of examples are provided to illustrate the numerical convergence of the method.NSERC Canada (RGPIN 227823), Hong Kong Research Grant Council GRF Grant (HKBU 11528205), Hong Kong Baptist University FRG Grant