Description
In this assignment, your aim is to extend the definition of a cubic spline to interpolate data that cannot
be described by a single-valued function.
(a) As a first example, consider the data points listed in the table (below, left) which are sampled
from an underlying smooth curve pictured in the plot (below, right):
t x y
0 0.0 0.0
1 1.0 3.0
2 2.0 3.0
3 2.0 4.0
4 3.0 5.0
multivalued!
Clearly, the curve passes through multiple y-values at x = 2, meaning that the underlying curve
is multi-valued and doesn’t pass the “vertical line test” – so it’s not a function!! This means that
the usual cubic spline approach based on trying to interpolate a function of the form y = f(x)
will not work.
The trick to dealing with data like this is to use a parametric spline that is based
on a parametric description of the curve: x = R(t) and y = S(t) for some parameter t. For
this example, it’s easiest to assign parameter values t = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 corresponding to the index of
the points in the table. The particular choice of t values is actually not important as long as t is
monotonically increasing. Because R(t) and S(t) are now both functions of t, we can interpolate
them with two separate cubic splines.
Based on the t-x-y data from the table, generate two cubic splines x = R(t) and y = S(t) using
the Matlab spline function with its default not-a-knot end-point conditions. Provide three
separate plots: of R versus t, S versus t, and S versus R (the last of which should reproduce the
plot above).
(b) Next use a parametric spline to interpolate the more interesting “four-leaf” curve pictured below.
The table lists coordinates (xi
, yi), i = 0, 1, . . . , 12, for 13 points lying along this curve.
t x y
0 2.75 -1.0
1 1.3 -0.75
2 -0.25 0.8
3 0.0 2.1
4 0.25 0.8
5 -1.3 -0.25
6 -2.5 0.0
7 -1.3 0.25
8 0.25 -1.3
9 0.0 -2.5
10 -0.25 -1.3
11 1.3 -0.25
12 2.75 -1.0
Determine the parametric spline x = R(t), y = S(t) that interpolates this set of points (x, y),
again using Matlab’s spline function. Plot your parametric spline curve and verify (by zooming in on your plot) that the right-most leaf is different from the other three leaves in that it is
not smooth – that is, the spline endpoints meet at a cusp.
(c) For a periodic curve like the one in part (b), it is more appropriate to use periodic end-point
conditions instead of not-a-knot conditions. That is, we should take R0
0
(t0) = R0
n−1
(tn) and
R00
0
(t0) = R00
n−1
(tn), and similarly for S(t). Use the Matlab code perspline.m posted on Canvas
to generate two periodic cubic spline approximations for R(t) and S(t), plot your parametric
curve, and compare to what you obtained in part (b). Verify that the cusp is eliminated.
(d) You can now get creative! Start by drawing your own periodic parametric curve, which can be
any smooth curve of your own design as long as the endpoints meet at the same location†
. Your
curve should be both . . .
• interesting: it should cross itself at least once, such as the 4 “leaf crossings” in part (b), and
• not too complicated: so that it can be approximated by a cubic spline with 20–40 points.
To generate your list of 20–40 data points, you may find it helpful to save your drawing as an
image file, and then use Matlab’s ginput (graphical input from mouse). The built-in function
ginput allows you to select points by clicking with the mouse at a sequence of along your parametric curve in the plotting window, and then outputs all x and y coordinates of the points you
selected.
If you type help ginput, you will see that it records mouse clicks within the plotting
window until the “enter” key is pressed, after which it returns two vectors of coordinates.
You
may find the following sequence of Matlab commands helpful:
figure(’position’, get(0,’screensize’)) % largest window possible
axes(’position’, [0 0 1 1]), axis square % make x,y-axes equal
imshow(’myimage.png’) % display your drawing on-screen
[x,y] = ginput; % record mouse clicks until ’Enter’
save mydatafile.mat x y % save x,y data points to a file
close % delete the huge window (if desired)
The save command saves your data points to a file that can later on be read back in using the
load command. You may then use your (x, y) data as input to perspline.m in the same way
you did in part (c) to construct your parametric spline and plot your results.
†
If you are looking for artistic inspiration, you can find a host of examples by entering “one line drawings” in a Google
Images search. Beware that many of these images are too complex for this assignment, so choose wisely! (or simplify).
