On cubic Hermite coalescence hidden variable fractal interpolation functions

Abstract

Hermite interpolation is a very important tool in approximation theory and numerical analysis, and provides a popular method for modeling in the area of computer aided geometric design. However, the classical Hermite interpolant is unique for a prescribed data set, and hence lacks freedom for the choice of an interpolating curve, which is a crucial requirement in design environment. Even though there is a rather well developed fractal theory for Hermite interpolation that offers a large flexibility in the choice of interpolants, it also has the shortcoming that the functions that can be well approximated are highly restricted to the class of self-affine functions. The primary objective of this paper is to suggest a \(\mathcal{C}^1\)-cubic Hermite interpolation scheme using a fractal methodology, namely, the coalescence hidden variable fractal interpolation, which works equally well for the approximation of a self-affine and non-self-affine data generating functions. The uniform error bound for the proposed fractal interpolant is established to demonstrate that the convergence properties are similar to that of the classical Hermite interpolant. For the Hermite interpolation problem, if the derivative values are not actually prescribed at the knots, then we assign these values so that the interpolant gains global \(\mathcal{C}^2\)-continuity. Consequently, the procedure culminates with the construction of cubic spline coalescence hidden variable fractal interpolants. Thus, the present article also provides an alternative to the construction of cubic spline coalescence hidden variable fractal interpolation functions through moments proposed by Chand and Kapoor [Fractals, 15(1) (2007), pp. 41–53].