Fitting Monotone Surfaces to Scattered Data Using C1 Piecewise Cubics (Q4337455)

Let \(Z=z(\zeta,\eta)\) be a continuous function defined on \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^2\). The function \(z\) is called monotone increasing on \(\Omega\) provided that \(z(\zeta_2, \eta_2)\geq z(\zeta_1, \eta_1)\) for all points \((\zeta_1,\eta_1)\) and \((\zeta_2,\eta_2)\) in \(\Omega\) such that \(\zeta_2\geq \zeta_1\) and \(\eta_2\geq \eta_1\). Let \(D= \{(\zeta_i,\eta_i, \gamma_i) \}_{i=1}^N\subset \mathbb{R}^3\) be a finite data set. \(D\) is called a monotone increasing data set provided that \(\gamma_j\geq \gamma_i\) for all points \((\zeta_i,\eta_i)\) and \((\zeta_j,\eta_j)\) and such that \(\zeta_j> \zeta_i\) and \(\eta_j\geq \eta_i\). The authors present some new methods for solving the following monotone interpolation problem: Given a monotone increasing data set \(D=\{(\zeta_i,\eta_i, \gamma_i) \}_{i=1}^N\) construct a surface \(s\in C^1(\Omega)\) which is monotone increasing and interpolates the given data in the sense that \(s(\zeta_i,\eta_i)= \gamma_i\), \(i=1,2,\dots, N\). The method is based on \(C^1\) cubic splines and an appropriate triangulation. The authors present some sufficient conditions on the Bézier net of a Bernstein-Bézier polynomial defined on a triangle such that the corresponding surface is monotone. Some numerical examples are presented.