Macro-elements and stable local bases for splines on Clough-Tocher triangulations (Q5943700)

The Clough-Tocher refinement of a given triangulation in the plane \({\mathbb R}^2\) is constructed by connecting the barycenter of each triangle to the three vertices [cf. \textit{R. Clough} and \textit{J. Tocher}, Finite element stiffness matrices for analysis of plates in bending. Proc. Conf. Matrix Meth. in Structural Anal., Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (1965)]. The present paper outlines the construction of local bases for certain superspline spaces defined over Clough-Tocher refinements of arbitrary triangulations of planar domains. The construction is performed by means of the Bernstein-Bézier technique [\textit{M.-J. Lai} and \textit{L. L. Schumaker}, Adv. Comput. Math. 9, No. 3-4, 251-279 (1998; Zbl 0924.91010)]. The local bases are shown to be stable as a function of the smallest angle occurring in the triangulation, which in turn implies that the associated spline spaces have optimal approximation order. A new type of macro-elements associated with planar Clough-Tocher splits is described in terms of minimal determining sets of domain points. The new macro-elements have the advantage of using a smaller number of degrees of freedom than several earlier known types of macro-elements [cf. \textit{P. Sablonnière}, J. Comput. Appl. Math. 12/13, 541-550 (1985; Zbl 0587.41004)]. The results have been verified by means of a JAVA program which is able to compute dimensions of spline spaces in exact arithmetic and checks minimal determining sets of points.