Functional Approximation

Compactly expressing large-scale datasets through Multivariate Functional Approximations (MFA) can be critically important for analysis and visualization to drive scientific discovery. Tackling such problems requires scalable data partitioning approaches to compute MFA representations in amenable wall clock times. We introduce a fully parallel scheme to reduce the total work per task in combination with an overlapping additive Schwarz-based iterative scheme to compute MFA with a tensor expansion of B-spline bases, while preserving full degree continuity across subdomain boundaries.

Fitting B-splines to discrete data is especially challenging when the given data contain noise, jumps, or corners. Here, we describe how periodic data sets with these features can be efficiently and robustly approximated with B-splines by analyzing the Fourier spectrum of the data. Our method uses a collection of spectral filters to produce different indicator functions that guide effective knot placement. In particular, we describe how spectral filters can be used to compute high-order derivatives, smoothed versions of noisy data, and the locations of jump discontinuities.