Spline Construction

Create splines including B-form, tensor-product, NURBs, and other rational splines

Using the Curve Fitting app or the fit function, you can fit cubic spline interpolants, smoothing splines, and thin-plate splines. Other Curve Fitting Toolbox™ functions allow more specialized control over spline construction. For example, you can use the function csapi for cubic spline interpolation. For more information, see How to Construct Splines.

Functions

bsplinePlot B-spline and its polynomial pieces
csapeCubic spline interpolation with end conditions
csapiCubic spline interpolation
csapsCubic smoothing spline
cscvn“Natural” or periodic interpolating cubic spline curve
frankeFranke's bivariate test function
getcurveInteractive creation of cubic spline curve
ppmakPut together spline in ppform
rpmakPut together rational spline
rscvnPiecewise biarc Hermite interpolation
rsmakPut together rational spline for standard geometric shapes
spap2Least-squares spline approximation
spapiSpline interpolation
spapsSmoothing spline
spcrvSpline curve by uniform subdivision
splinetoolExperiment with some spline approximation methods
spmakPut together spline in B-form
sptermsExplain spline terms
stmakPut together function in stform
tpapsThin-plate smoothing spline
titaniumTitanium test data

Topics

Introduction to Splines

Introducing Spline Fitting

Tools for interactive and programmatic spline fitting in Curve Fitting Toolbox.

Curve Fitting Toolbox Splines and MATLAB Splines

How Curve Fitting Toolbox extends the splines (or piecewise-polynomial functions) of MATLAB®.

Types of Splines: ppform and B-form

Learn about the definitions of the ppform and B-form splines.

B-Splines and Smoothing Splines

Learn about the definitions of the B-form and smoothing splines.

Multivariate and Rational Splines

Learn how to construct multivariate and rational splines.

The ppform

Learn about the definition of the ppform spline.

The B-form

Learn about the definition of B-form splines.

List of Terms for Spline Fitting

Terms and definitions presented in order such that the explanation of each term only uses terms discussed earlier

Fundamental Spline Methods

Cubic Spline Interpolation

Use cubic splines to interpolate smooth data, choosing knots and smoothness.

Vector-Valued Functions

Use vector-valued splines to plot curves through given points.

Fitting Values at N-D Grid with Tensor-Product Splines

Use vector-valued splines to approximate gridded data in any number of variables using tensor-product splines.

Fitting Values at Scattered 2-D Sites with Thin-Plate Smoothing Splines

Use the thin-plate smoothing spline for work with scattered bivariate data. Tensor-product splines are good for gridded (bivariate and even multivariate) data.

Constructing and Working with ppform Splines

Learn how to construct ppform splines.

Constructing and Working with B-form Splines

Learn how to construct B-form splines.

Multivariate Tensor Product Splines

Learn how to construct multivariate splines.

Constructing and Working with Rational Splines

Learn how to construct rational splines.

Constructing and Working with stform Splines

Learn how to construct stform splines.

Least-Squares Approximation by Natural Cubic Splines

The construction of a least-squares approximant usually requires that one have in hand a basis for the space from which the data are to be approximated.

Solving A Nonlinear ODE

This section discusses these aspects of a nonlinear ODE problem:

Construction of the Chebyshev Spline

This section discusses these aspects of the Chebyshev spline construction:

Approximation by Tensor Product Splines

Because the toolbox can handle splines with vector coefficients, it is easy to implement interpolation or approximation to gridded data by tensor product splines, as the following illustration is meant to show.

How to Construct Splines

This example shows how to construct splines in various ways using the spline functions in Curve Fitting Toolbox™.

Construct and Work with the B-form

This example shows how to construct and work with the B-form of a spline in Curve Fitting Toolbox™.

Construct and Work with the PPFORM

This example shows how to construct and work with the ppform of a spline in Curve Fitting Toolbox™.

How to Choose Knots

This example shows how to select and optimize knots using the optknt and newknt commands from Curve Fitting Toolbox™.

Fitting Splines to Data

Cubic Spline Interpolation

This example shows how to use the csapi and csape commands from Curve Fitting Toolbox™ to construct cubic spline interpolants.

Cubic Smoothing Splines

This example shows how to use the csaps and spaps commands from Curve Fitting Toolbox™ to construct cubic smoothing splines.

Fitting a Spline to Titanium Test Data

This example shows how to use commands from Curve Fitting Toolbox™ to fit a spline to titanium test data with manual and automatic selection of knots.

Spline Applications

Splines in the Plane

This example shows how to use the spmak, spcrv, cscvn and rscvn commands from Curve Fitting Toolbox™ to construct spline curves in the plane.

Constructing Spline Curves in 2D and 3D

This example shows how to use the cscvn command from Curve Fitting Toolbox™ to construct cubic spline curves in two and three dimensions.

Smoothing a Histogram

This example shows how to use spline commands from Curve Fitting Toolbox™ to smooth a histogram.

Bivariate Tensor Product Splines

This example shows how to use the spline commands in Curve Fitting Toolbox™ to fit tensor product splines to bivariate gridded data.

Solving a Nonlinear ODE with a Boundary Layer by Collocation

This example shows how to use spline commands from Curve Fitting Toolbox™ solve a nonlinear ordinary differential equation (ODE).

Construction of a Chebyshev Spline

This example shows how to use commands from Curve Fitting Toolbox™ to construct a Chebyshev spline.

Featured Examples