Construction of global surfaces by variational evolutionary PDE splines (Q1936191)

In many practical applications, the construction of curves and surfaces is done by using geometric primitives (lines, conics, etc.) which can be described by some simple equations. But in many problems of engineering, geology etc. we must find smooth curves and surfaces whose shapes cannot be described by some simple equations. For instance in automotive or aerospace industries where we have some interpolation or approximation data and some properties modelled by partial differential equations (PDEs). The paper introduces the construction problem of free-form surfaces from data obtained by approximation points and a boundary problem for evolutionary PDEs. First, the notations used in the article are introduced. Next, the authors define and characterize discrete variational PDE splines. To resolve the given problem they make two steps. In the first step they use the finite differential method using the uniform partition \(t_0 = 0 < t_1 < t_2 < \ldots < T_R = T\) of the time. In the second step for each \(i = 1, 2, \ldots, R\) they search for a unique solution by discretizing the position. For this purpose they introduce a discrete variational evolutionary PDE spline and show how to compute it. Then, they study the convergence of the discrete variational PDE spline to an adequate function. Finally, the authors give some numerical and graphical examples of various variational PDE splines obtained with the proposed method.