Vor-Splines Natural Element Method

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING
Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2007; 00:1–28 Prepared using nmeauth.cls [Version: 2002/09/18 v2.02]
Higher-order Natural Element Methods:

towards an isogeometric meshless method
David González1 , Elı́as Cueto1,∗ , Manuel Doblaré1

1 Group of Structural Mechanics and Material Modelling. Aragón Institute of Engineering Research (I3A).
University of Zaragoza. Marı́a de Luna, 5. Campus Rio Ebro. E-50018 Zaragoza, Spain.
SUMMARY
The problem of generalizing the Natural Element Method in terms of higher-order consistency and
continuity is addressed here. It is done by means of the de Boor algorithm, the same employed to obtain
B-splines by linear combinations of linear interpolants in one dimension. By noting that any form of
natural neighbour interpolation can be considered as a suitable generalization of linear interpolation
to two and higher dimensions, the de Boor algorithm is extended to two or higher dimensions, thus
obtaining a new form of interpolation that can be used in a Galerkin framework to develop a new
class of meshless methods.
This new class of meshless methods closely resembles the isogeometric analysis developed by
[T.J.R. Hughes et al. Isogeometric analysis: CAD, finite elements, NURBS, exact geometry, and
mesh refinement. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 194:4135-4195, 2005].
However, unlike B-splines, the new class of interpolants does not rely on an underlying tensor-product
quadrilateral mesh. It is based upon the Delaunay triangulation of the cloud of knots and does not
require any regularity on the connectivity.
In addition, the new method conserves many of the attractive features of the Natural Element
Method, such as strict interpolation on the boundary, and thus direct imposition of essential boundary
conditions. After a theoretical description of the proposed method, some numerical examples are shown
to test its performance in the context of Linear Elastostatics. Copyright c 2007 John Wiley & Sons,
Ltd.
key words: Meshless, Natural Element Method, Sibson interpolation, Laplace interpolation,
isogeometric analysis, de Boor’s algorithm, B-splines.
∗ Correspondence to: Elı́as Cueto. Mechanical Engineering Department. Edificio Betancourt. University of
Zaragoza. Marı́a de Luna, 5. E-50018 Zaragoza, Spain. e-mail: ecueto@unizar.es
Contract/grant sponsor: Spanish Ministry of Education and Science; contract/grant number: CICYT-DPI2005-
08727-C02-01
Contract/grant sponsor: European Union, sixth Framework Program; contract/grant number: DeSSOS project,
STREP project number 027252.
Received March 2007

c 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Copyright Revised September 2007
Accepted
2 GONZÁLEZ, CUETO AND DOBLARÉ
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION 2
2 NATURAL NEIGHBOUR INTERPOLATION 4

2.1 Voronoi/Dirichlet diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Thiessen interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 Sibson’s interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4 Laplace interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5 Hiyoshi-Sugihara interpolant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3 REVISITING DE BOOR’S ALGORITHM FOR B-SPLINES 9
4 B-SPLINE SURFACES CONSTRUCTED OVER NATURAL NEIGH-

BOUR INTERPOLATION 13
4.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2 Properties of the proposed surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.3 The case of repeated knots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7 NUMERICAL EXAMPLES 20
7.1 L2 -fit of a quadratic polynomial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.2 L2 -fit of a cubic polynomial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7.3 Beam bending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7.4 Infinite plate with a hole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8 CONCLUSIONS 25
1. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays it is widely recognised that meshless methods have gained an utmost importance
for the numerical simulation of certain classes of problems. This is particularly noteworthy
in problems involving large deformations, evolving cracks, free surfaces and many others.
Although certain problems persist in most meshless methods (imposition of essential boundary
conditions or numerical integration, for instance) they constitute, after more than a decade
of research performed by the Computational Mechanics community, an appealing alternative
that is now being incorporated to commercial software.
The Natural Element Method (NEM) is nowadays a well-established technique in the
family of meshless methods that has attracted attention of many researchers. Both from the
theoretical point of view [5] [29] [25] [7] [8] [30] and its application to different problems [3]
[1] [21] [15], the Natural Element Method has demonstrated its success for a wide variety
of problems, mainly those involving large strains, free surfaces, etc. Some of its interesting
characteristics are the “exact” (i.e., within the order of the approximation) imposition of
essential boundary conditions and the exact numerical integration (achieved by the use of
Stabilized Conforming Nodal Integration, see [6] [14]).
Copyright c 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2007; 00:1–28
Prepared using nmeauth.cls
HIGHER-ORDER NATURAL ELEMENT METHODS 3
In essence, the NEM is a Galerkin method based on the use of natural neighbour
interpolation (either Thiessen [27], Laplace [4] or Sibson [22] interpolation schemes) instead
of piece-wise polynomials, employed in the case of the FEM. The fact that, unlike most other
meshless methods, NEM shape functions are strictly interpolant, clearly simplifies the issue of
imposing essential boundary conditions, as mentioned before. In fact, many authors consider
natural neighbour interpolation as the most suitable generalization of linear interpolation to
two or higher dimensions, without an underlying quadrilateral or tensor-product mesh [11].
Precisely the fact that the NEM possesses linear consistency and C 0 continuity only is
perhaps on the basis of its limited popularity, if compared with other meshless methods, which
easily achieve higher-order consistency and even C ∞ continuity. Only one attempt has been
made to overcome this difficulty, up to our knowledge, by applying a quadratic consistency
and C 1 interpolant based on natural neighbours that, however, does not seem to posses any
further generalization [24]. This interpolant can be used, for instance, for solving fourth-order
partial differential equations such as those arising from the theory of Kirchhoff plate bending.
In this paper an attempt to overcome these NEM limitations is performed, by going back
to the foundations of B-splines and how by linear combinations of linear interpolants, higher-
order curves can be obtained. B-spline curves can be obtained by means of the so-called de
Boor’s algorithm [11]. For the surface case, tensor product B-spline surfaces were initially
proposed in [9]. An extensive review of this topic can be found in [11, Ch. 16]. Tensor product
B-spline surfaces are, however, very rigid. For instance, no tensor product surface can have
the connectivity of a double torus. This algorithm is here generalized, without the use of
tensor products, to higher dimensions. This is done by employing different natural neighbour
interpolation schemes.
Recently, the use of NURBS or B-splines as basis functions for a Finite Element-like
simulation has been studied [19]. The main objective is clear: B-splines (or, more properly,
NURBS) are the standard for CAD systems, and they reproduce the geometry of the domain
exactly, which is not the case in Finite Element models. The use of the same approximation
for both the construction of the geometry and the approximation of the essential field of
the problem obviously simplifies the burdensome mesh generation process. Other interesting
properties of NURBS like the so-called “variation diminishing” [11] property also apply. This
means that, unlike high-order polynomials, B-splines or NURBS do not show the well-known
Gibbs effect [13].
However, it remains unclear whether the use of B-splines-like finite elements leads to
remeshing problems when large distortions of the mesh occur. Tensor-product B-splines,
as mentioned before, are quite rigid. In addition, fulfilment of (inhomogeneous) essential
(Dirichlet) boundary conditions should be done typically in an approximate sense, or by
imposing them weakly. This same problem is common for many meshless methods.
In this paper we develop a new family of natural neighbour interpolation schemes that
show many interesting properties. First of all, they are based on Sibson [22], Laplace[26] or
Hiyoshi-Sugihara [17] interpolants, but higher-order approximation is achieved by means of the
de Boor’s algorithm. We show that these interpolants behave as a suitable generalization of
linear interpolation to higher dimensions. We thus obtain a family of B-spline-like surfaces that
do not rely on an underlying tensor-product mesh to be built. They share many interesting
properties with natural neighbour interpolants, as will be discussed hereafter. The control of
the degree of continuity and consistency is also possible, as will be seen, in a B-spline manner.
In addition, imposition of essential boundary conditions can be done by means of repeating
the boundary knots employed to build the approximation spaces. These new function spaces
are used, in a Galerkin framework, to generalize the Natural Element Method to an arbitrary
order of consistency, thus obtaining a method that closely resembles the isoparametric finite
elements by Hughes [19], but without any tensor-product underlying mesh.
In section 2 we describe the most popular natural neighbour-based interpolants and show
how they can be interpreted as a suitable generalization of linear interpolation to higher
dimensions. In section 3 we describe the de Boor’s algorithm to construct B-splines and
develop a similar one based on natural neighbour interpolants. Some classical examples are
then analyzed to show the performance of the proposed method.
2. NATURAL NEIGHBOUR INTERPOLATION
There are various interpolation schemes based on the use of natural neighbours. Historically,
the first one is due to Thiessen [27] and possesses constant consistency only. It has been
employed to approximate pressures in Hellinger-Reissner-like variational principles [16],
although it is obviously not suitable for second-order partial differential equations. The most
popular natural neighbour interpolant is probably the one due to Sibson [22], but other
interpolants have been recently developed, such as the so-called Laplace Interpolant or the
Hiyoshi-Sugihara interpolant [17]. In this section we review some of them. Others, such as a
recently-developed MLS scheme based on the use of natural neighbour can be consulted in [2]
and references therein.
Prior to this review we introduce some basic geometrical entities that are needed for further
developments.
2.1. Voronoi/Dirichlet diagrams

Consider a model composed by a cloud of points N = {x1 , x2 , . . . , xm } ⊂ Rd , for which there
is a unique decomposition of the space into regions such that each point within these regions is
closer to the node to which the region is associated than to any other in the cloud. This kind
of space decomposition is called a Voronoi diagram (also Dirichlet tessellation) of the cloud of
points and each Voronoi cell is formally defined as (see figure 1):
TI = {x ∈ Rd : d(x, xI ) < d(x, xJ ) ∀ J 6= I}, (1)
where d(·, ·) is the Euclidean distance function.
The dual structure of the Voronoi diagram is the Delaunay triangulation† , obtained by
connecting nodes that share a common (d − 1)-dimensional facet. While the Voronoi structure
is unique, the Delaunay triangulation is not, there being some so-called degenerate cases in
which there are two or more possible Delaunay triangulations (consider, for example, the case
of triangulating a square in 2D, as depicted in Fig. 1 (right)). Another way to define the
Delaunay triangulation of a set of nodes is by invoking the empty circumcircle property, which
means that no node of the cloud lies within the circle covering a Delaunay triangle. Two nodes
† Even in three-dimensional spaces, it is common to refer to the Delaunay tetrahedralisation with the word
triangulation in the vast majority of the literature
Figure 1. Delaunay triangulation and Voronoi diagram of a cloud of points.
sharing a facet of their Voronoi cell are called natural neighbours and hence the name of the
technique.
Equivalently, the second-order Voronoi diagram of the cloud is defined as
TIJ = {x ∈ Rd : d(x, xI ) < d(x, xJ ) < d(x, xK ) ∀ J 6= I 6= K}. (2)
Based on these definitions, different natural neighbour interpolation schemes have been
proposed. We review some of the most popular.
2.2. Thiessen interpolation

The simplest of the natural neighbour-based interpolants is the so-called Thiessen’s interpolant
[27]. Its interpolating functions are defined as
(
1 if x ∈ TI
ψI (x) = . (3)
0 elsewhere
The Thiessen interpolant is a piece-wise constant function, defined over each Voronoi cell. It
defines a method of interpolation often referred to as nearest neighbour interpolation, since
a point is given a value defined by its nearest neighbour. Although it is obviously not valid
for the solution of second-order partial differential equations, it can be used to interpolate the
pressure in formulations arising from Hellinger-Reissner-like mixed variational principles [16].
2.3. Sibson’s interpolation

The most extended natural neighbour interpolation method, however, is the Sibson interpolant
[22] [23]. Consider the introduction of the point x in the cloud of nodes. Due to this
introduction, the Voronoi diagram will be altered, affecting the Voronoi cells of the natural
neighbours of x. Sibson [22] defined the natural neighbour coordinates of a point x with respect
to one of its neighbours I as the ratio of the cell TI that is transferred to Tx when adding x to
the initial cloud of points to the total volume of Tx . In other words, if κ(x) and κI (x) are the
Lebesgue measures of Tx and TxI respectively, the natural neighbour coordinates of x with
respect to the node I is defined as
κI (x)
φI (x) = . (4)
κ(x)
In Fig. 2 the shape function associated to node 1 at point x may be expressed as
Aabf e
φ1 (x) = . (5)
Aabcd
6 4
a
e d
1 x f 3
b c
7
2
Figure 2. Definition of the Natural Neighbour coordinates of a point x.
Sibson’s interpolation scheme possesses the usual reproducing properties for this class of
problems, that is, it verifies the partition of unity property (constant consistency) and the
linear consistency property. Thus, it is suitable for the solution of second-order PDE. Other
interesting properties such as the Kronecker delta property [25] and linear interpolation on the
boundary [7] [30] are also verified by the NEM.
2.4. Laplace interpolation

Recently, some new interpolation schemes based on the concept of natural neighbors have been
proposed [18] [4]. Its application in the context of the NEM dates back to the work of Sukumar
[26]. This so-called Laplace or non-Sibsonian interpolation has received considerable attention,
since it involves magnitudes of one order less of the space dimension (i.e., the calculation of
areas in three-dimensional T problems, for instance, instead of volumes). If we define the cell
intersection tIJ = {x ∈ TI TJ , J 6= I} (note that tIJ may be an empty set) we can define
the value
|txJ |
αJ (x) = . (6)
d(x, xJ )/2
Thus, the shape function related to node 4 at point x in Fig. 3 is defined as
α4 (x) s4 (x)/h4 (x)
φns
4 (x) = Pn = Pn , (7)
J=1 Jα (x) J=1 sJ (x)/hJ (x)
where sJ represents the length of the Voronoi segment associated to node J and n represents
the number of natural neighbours of the point under consideration, x. n = 4 in this example.
hJ represents the distance from the evaluation point to the edge of the voronoi cell, see Fig. 3.
Derivatives of the Laplace shape function are not defined along the edges of the Delaunay
triangles that lie inside its support (see [26]), but the approximation is C 1 at any other point.
This same interpolation scheme is used in the Meshless Finite Element Method (MFEM)
context [20], but in this case, the space is divided into polyhedral elements and Laplace
interpolation is constructed within each polyhedron. Since the same properties mentioned
Figure 3. Definition of non-Sibsonian coordinates.
Z Z
Y Y
X X
(a) (b)
Figure 4. Sibson (a) and Laplace (b) shape functions.
for Sibson interpolation (i.e., linear completeness, exact interpolation on the nodes and linear
interpolation along the boundaries) hold, a conforming method is achieved.
A comparison of Sibson and Laplace shape functions for the central node within a lattice of
5 × 5 nodes is shown in Fig. 4.
2.5. Hiyoshi-Sugihara interpolant

Recently, Hiyoshi and Sugihara have proposed a generalization of natural neighbour
coordinates of a set of points, see [17]. Prior to its introduction, it is necessary to define the
concept of Laguerre-Voronoi diagram (weighted Voronoi diagrams). Let B = {b1 , b2 , . . . , bn }

be a set of closed balls in Rd , i.e., bI = (xI , ̺I ), where xI is the center of the ball and ̺I its
radius. The weighted distance from a point to a ball will be thus defined as
πI (x) = ||x − xI || − ̺I . (8)
The Laguerre-Voronoi diagram will thus be defined as the decomposition of the space into
regions of the form:
VI = {x ∈ Rd : πI (x) < πJ (x) ∀ J 6= I}. (9)
The Laguerre-Voronoi diagrams share many of they properties with standard Voronoi
diagrams, but not all. For instance:
• The Laguerre-Voronoi cell associated to a given node does not necessarily exist.
• If it exists, it is a convex polytope.
• The Laguerre-Voronoi facet is perpendicular to the line joining two neihgbouring nodes.
See [17] and references therein for detailed proofs of these assertions. The key aspect in defining
their generalized system of coordinates is considering a set of nodes equipped with increasing
ball radii. Note that the Laguerre-Voronoi diagram for ̺I = 0, ∀I, coincides with the standard
Voronoi diagram. If, starting from zero, all ball radii are increased, except the one associated
to the evaluation point, its Laguerre-Voronoi cell will consequently shrink until it disappears
for sufficiently large ball radius.
x2 x1
r1
h1
u1
xn xI
Figure 5. Definition of the shrinking cells in Laguerre-Voronoi diagrams. The dashed-line cell represents
the shrunken original cell (continuous line) when the weight ̺ 6= 0.
In Fig. 5, a Laguerre-Voronoi cell is depicted for an evaluation point x surrounded by other

four nodes, x1 to xn . The distance between the evaluation point and a given node xI is denoted
as rI , whereas the distance from the evaluation point to the Voronoi (n − 1)-dimensional facet
is here labelled as hI , as in Fig. 3. This same distance is labelled as uI in a Laguerre-Voronoi

diagram.
After this definitions, we can define the following coordinates over a shrinking cell associated
to an evaluation point x: Z uJ
ζIk (x) = rI ζIk−1 (x)du′J , (10)
0
with
sI
ζI0 (x) = , (11)
uI
sI being the (d − 1)-dimensional measure of the Laguerre-Voronoi facet and xJ one of the
natural neighbours of node xI . du′J represents a dummy argument for the integration along
the segments uI , defined in Fig. 5. It is possible then to normalize this coordinates to give:
ζ k (x)
ψIk (x) = Pn I k (12)
J=1 ζJ (x)
where the super-index k represents how many times the obtained shape function can be
continuously differentiated [17]. In the above definition, the ψI0 (x)’s are well defined only
when x does not coincide with any of the nodes xI . In that case,
ψI0 (xJ ) = δIJ . (13)
The coordinates defined above generalize the sequence Laplace → Sibson and provide
an interesting means of interpolate data with smoother shape functions. Some remarkable
properties of these so-called “generalized” coordinates are (see [17]):
• Exactness (or, equivalently, the so-called Kronecker’s delta property):
ψIk (xJ ) = δIJ
• C k continuity if x lies on the Delaunay sphere of the data sites (nodes). Continuity other
than C 0 at the nodes themselves has not been proved analytically, but computational
experiments performed in [17] and also by the authors suggest its fulfillment. C ∞
continuity is obtained elsewhere.
In Fig. 6 the shape functions with C 1 and C 2 continuity are shown for a set of nodes placed
on a regular lattice.
This set of interpolating functions has linear precision, at most. This is easily proven if we
consider the limiting case of only three neighbouring nodes around a given evaluation point.
It is impossible to define a quadratic surface given only three data.
So, the problem of generalizing natural neighbour-based interpolants includes the elevation
of the degree of consistency. In this work we propose a novel technique based on the application
of the well-know de Boor’s algorihtm [11]. This algorithm is the same used in the context of B-
spline curves to generate higher-order curves from linear combinations of linear interpolations.
3. REVISITING DE BOOR’S ALGORITHM FOR B-SPLINES
The de Casteljau algorithm for Bézier curves states that such curves can be obtained by
successive application of linear interpolation [11], i.e., given some points b0 , b1 , . . . , bn ∈ E3
Z Z
X Y X Y
(a) (b)
Figure 6. Hiyoshi-Sugihara interpolants with C 1 (a) and C 2 (b) continuity, respectively.
and t ∈ R, the construction

(
r = 1, . . . , n
bri (t) = (1 − t)bir−1 (t) + r−1
tbi+1 (t) with , (14)
i = 0, . . . , n − r
where b0i = bi , gives the desired Bézier curve.
The de Boor’s algorithm generalizes this algorithm by introducing a parametric space,
defined by an arbitrary sequence of knots u0 , u1 , u2 , u3 . A quadratic Bézier curve can thus
be seen as parametrized by the series 0, 0, 1, 1, for instance. The quadratic blossom b[u, u] can
then be written as (see Fig. 7)
u2 − u u − u1
b[u, u] = b[u1 , u] + b[u, u2 ]
u2 − u1 u2 − u1

u2 − u u2 − u u − u0
= b[u0 , u1 ] + b[u1 , u2 ] (15)
u2 − u1 u2 − u0 u2 − u0

u − u1 u3 − u u − u1
+ b[u1 , u2 ] + b[u2 , u3 ]
u2 − u1 u3 − u1 u3 − u1
The key aspect of the de Boor’s algorithm is that it expresses u in terms of intervals of
growing size. B-spline curves consist of a union of polynomial curve segments. Following the
notation in [11], let U be an interval [uI , uI+1 ] in the sequence of knots. Then, there will be
an ordered sequence of knots Uir , each containing uI or uI+1 , such that Uir consists of r + 1
successive knots and uI is the (r − i)-th element of Uir .
A degree n curve segment corresponding to the interval U is then given by n + 1 control
points di . Each intermediate control polygon leg dri , dri+1 can then be viewed as an affine image
n−r+1
of Ui+1 . The point dr+1
i is the image of u under such an affine map.
b[u1,u2]
b[u,u1]
b[u,u2]
b[u,u]
b[u0,u1] b[u2,u3]
u0 u1 u u2 u3
s
s U 11
U 13
s
U 12
Figure 7. Schematic representation of the de Boor’s algorithm.
It is well-known [11] that a non-parametric B-spline function d(u) can be written as a

parametric curve with control points

ξ
di = i , with i = 0, . . . , L
di
and L = K − n + 1, with K the number of knots and n the degree of the curve. In this case,
the points ξi are called Greville abscissae and can be determined as:
1
ξi = (ui + . . . + ui+n−1 )
n
For n = 2 it is straightforward to prove that the Greville abscissae coincide with the Voronoi
vertices of the knot sequence.
Working in non-parametric form, and using the equivalence between Sibson and linear
interpolation in one dimension, this simple algorithm can alternatively be obtained by applying
Natural Neighbour (Sibson) interpolation over segments Uir in which we eliminate r − 1 of the
closest neighbours of the point u:
b[u, u] = φ1 (u)b[u1 , u] + φ2 (u)b[u, u2 ]
= φ1 (u) ϕ20 (u)b[u0 , u1 ] + ϕ22 (u)b[u1 , u2 ]

(16)
+ φ2 (u) ϕ21 (u)b[u1 , u2 ] + ϕ23 (u)b[u2 , u3 ]

where φI (u) represent the natural neighbour coordinates of point u with respect to knot I
and ϕrI (u) represent the natural neighbour coordinates of point u with respect to knot I, but
computed over an interval Uir , i.e., by eliminating r − 1 natural neighbours of the interval. The
notation used is shown in Fig. 8.
b[u1,u2]
b[u,u1]
b[u,u2]
b[u,u]
b[u0,u1] b[u2,u3]
f1(U11) f2(U11)
u0 u1 u u2 u3
j0(U12) j2(U12)
u0 u u2 u3
j1(U22) j3(U22)
u0 u1 u u3
Figure 8. Schematic representation of the de Boor’s algorithm employing natural neighbours. Between
parentheses, the domain of each function.
This algorithm will be extended to higher-dimensional cases in the following section.
4. B-SPLINE SURFACES CONSTRUCTED OVER NATURAL NEIGHBOUR

INTERPOLATION
4.1. Definition
The de Boor’s algorithm thus presented can be extended to higher-dimensional cases as
follows. In the following development we employ Sibson coordinates, although the proposed
algorithm can also be applied to Laplace and Hiyoshi-Sugihara interpolants, as will be shown
later. Consider again, for simplicity, a set of nodes N = {x1 , x2 , . . . , xM } ⊂ R2 and a
quadratic surface (the extension to three or higher dimensions and higher-order surfaces is
straightforward). From now on, we will work in non-parametric form, since it is extremely
hard to find the two-dimensional counterparts of the intervals Uir for irregularly scattered
sites. Then, we define a new class of surfaces constructed in the way:
I
n X
X n
s(x) = NIJ (x)dIJ , with dIJ = dJI (17)
I=1 J=1
where n represents the number of neighbours of the point x. In addition,
NIJ (x) = φI (x)ϕIJ (x) (18)
and dIJ represent the control points in B-spline terminology (i.e., the degrees of freedom).
φI (x) represents the natural neighbour (Sibson) coordinate of the point x with respect to site
I. Functions ϕIJ (x) represent the natural neighbour coordinates of point x with respect to site
J, in the original cloud of points, but without the I-th site (see Fig. 9), in the sense described
by the previous section. Finally, nI is the number of natural neighbours of the point x when
we eliminate the site I, similarly to the de Boor’s algorithm. Note that the number of degrees
of freedom of the proposed approximation is much less than M 2 /2, since the sums in Eq. (17)
extend only over natural neighbors of each node.
The typical shape of the functions NIJ described before is shown in Fig. 10 for a general set
of irregularly distributed sites.
4.2. Properties of the proposed surfaces

Surfaces defined after Eq. (17) posses some similarities with standard B-spline curves. These
properties will be studied in this section, again with focus in the quadratic case for the sake
of simplicity.
Proposition 4.1. The functions NIJ are always positive.
Proof The proof is straightforward, since the shape functions NIJ are the product of two
Sibson interpolants, always positive.
Proposition 4.2. The functions NIJ form a partition of unity, i.e.,

I
n X
X n
NIJ (x) = 1 ∀x ∈ R2 (19)
I=1 J=1
L L
J J
I
x x
K K
M M
N N
(a) (b)
Figure 9. Schematic representation of the proposed algorithm. (a) Set of sites {I, . . . , N }. We consider
an evaluation point x, whose neighbours are depicted as filled circles. The support of the function φI
is highlighted. (b) After eliminating site I, the support of function ϕIJ is highlighted. Note the new
set of neighbouring sites, {J, K, L, M }.
X Y
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
Z
0.1
0.05
0
1 1
2 2
3 3
Y X
4 4
5 5
Figure 10. Shape of a typical function NIJ for a set of irregularly distributed sites.
Proof By applying the definition of the new basis functions, given by Eq. (18) we have
I I I
X n
n X X n
n X n
X n
X
NIJ (x) = φI (x)ϕIJ (x) = φI (x) ϕIJ (x).
I=1 J=1 I=1 J=1 I=1 J=1
and, by using the well-known partition of unity property of standard Sibson coordinates,
I I
n
X X n
n X n
X
ϕIJ (x) =1 ⇒ NIJ (x) = φI (x) = 1. (20)
J=1 I=1 J=1 I=1
This property is of utmost importance if this kind of approximation is going to be used

in the approximate solution of PDEs by a standard Galerkin procedure, since it ensures that
rigid-body motions are reproduced properly. Following this reasoning, we demonstrate the
linear completeness of the approximation:
Proposition 4.3. The basis functions NIJ (x) span the space of linear polynomials.
Proof To prove this, we consider an approximation of the type:

n XnI k
xI + xkJ
X
s(x) = NIJ (x) ,
2
I=1 J=1
k
for each coordinate x , where xkI represents the coordinate k of the knot I neighbouring a
generic point x. Thus,
I
n
n X n nI
xkI + xkJ

X 1 XX
φI (x)ϕIJ (x) φI (x)ϕIJ (x) xkI + xkJ .

s(x) = =
2 2
I=1 J=1 I=1 J=1
Expanding the sums,

n nI
1 XX
s(x) = φI (x)ϕIJ (x)xkI +
2
I=1 J=1
n nI
1 XX
+ φI (x)ϕIJ (x)xkJ .
2
I=1 J=1
Making use of the linear completeness of the Sibson interpolant we arrive at

n n
1X 1X
s(x) = φI (x) · xkI · 1 + φI (x)xk ,
2 2
I=1 I=1
and, finally,
n
1 k 1 kX
s(x) = x + x φI (x) = xk .
2 2
I=1
Following a similar approach, the quadratic completeness can be deduced and, by induction,
the p-th order precision.
Proposition 4.4. The basis functions NIJ (x) span the space of quadratic polynomials.
Proof Let us consider now an approximation of the type:

I
n X
X n
s(x) = NIJ (x)xkI xlJ , (21)
I=1 J=1
for each quadratic product xk xl of the coordinates k, l, where xkI represents the k-coordinate
of the knot I neighbouring the generic evaluation point x. Thus,
I I
X n
n X n
X n
X
NIJ (x)xkI xlJ = φI (x)xkI ϕIJ (x)xlJ .
I=1 J=1 I=1 J=1
We obtain finally
s(x) = xk xl ,
thus obtaining, together with Props. 4.2 and 4.3, the desired proof for the completeness of the
quadratic basis.
The interested reader can consult the book by Farin [11] for the details on a similar proof
for higher-order consistency. Note that the approximation employed in Eq. (21) should be
substituted for the appropriate one with the desired consistency, see Eq. (17).
Proposition 4.5. The proposed surfaces are C p−1 , where p stands for the order of the surface,
except at the nodes, in the direction joining two neighbouring nodes, where they are C 0 .
Proof The derivatives of the proposed surfaces (again we refer to the quadratic case) can be
obtained straightforwardly by applying the chain’s rule:
I
n n
∂s(x) ∂ XX
= NIJ (x)dIJ =
∂xk ∂xk
I=1 J=1
I
n
n X
∂ϕIJ (x)

X ∂φI (x) I
= dIJ ϕ J (x) + φ I (x) , k = 1, 2, . . . , d. (22)
∂xk ∂xk
I=1 J=1
Thus, the only points where Eq. (22) is not well defined are precisely the data sites, the only
points where the functions φI are not continuously differentiable. This is in perfect agreement
with the B-splines case, that match smoothly at the data sites, despite having discontinuous
derivatives there.
For the proof of the smoothness of the surfaces, we refer again to the quadratic case, and
thus we limit ourselves to the proof of the C 1 continuity, in the absence of repeated knots (for
the case of repeated knots, see Prop. 4.6).
To demonstrate the smoothness of the proposed surfaces, it is clear that the pair NIJ + NJI
should be continuously differentiable. Equivalently,
φI (x)ϕIJ (x) + φJ (x)ϕJI (x)
should be continuously differentiable. By the chain rule,

φ′I (x)ϕIJ (x) + φI (x)ϕ′I ′ J ′J
J (x) + φJ (x)ϕI (x) + φJ (x)ϕI (x)
should be continuous. Evaluating this expression at node I we arrive to:

φ′I (I)ϕIJ (I) + 1 · ϕ′I ′ ′J
J (I) + φJ (I) · 1 + 0 · ϕI (I),
or, equivalently,
φ′I (I)ϕIJ (I) + ϕ′I ′
J (I) + φJ (I).
The term ϕ′IJ (I) is continuous, since it represents the derivative of the Sibson coordinates
with respect to node J once node I has been eliminated from the cloud, evaluated at the
original position of node I and along any direction. This also holds for higher-consistency
cases. However, the other two terms are not continuous, and their value depends on the choice
of a particular direction. In particular, for the joint surface to be continuously differentiable,
the sum
φ′I (I)ϕIJ (I) + φ′J (I) (23)
should take a value independent of the direction from which we approach the site I. From [10]
it is well-known that when an evaluation point approaches one of the data points on a straight
line through one of its neighbours, the new Sibson coordinate starts from null value growing
linearly, thus with C 0 continuity. The term in Eq. (23) is, in general, not continuous, when
differentiated in the direction of a neighbouring data site.
The x- and y-derivatives of the function pairs NIJ + NJI are shown in Fig. 11 and 12. A
single function NIJ is depicted in Fig. 10. Note that a single function NIJ is clearly not C 1 .
Note also that a high gradient exists in this particular case, but not a discontinuity. In fact,
the closer sites I and J are located, the higher is the gradient in the derivative.
If, on the contrary, the derivative is computed along the line joining two neighbouring sites,
the pair NIJ + NJI value takes the form depicted in Fig. 13(a), with the derivative shown in
Fig. 13(b).
4.3. The case of repeated knots

It is well-known that in the case of B-splines, the continuity of the sequence of curves can be
controlled by the use of repeated knots. In the limit of knots infinitely close (repeated knots)
a jump in the derivative appears, thus giving a C 0 surface that, in addition, interpolates the
data at the site location.
Proposition 4.6. If a knot I is of multiplicity r, the surface of order n thus obtained possesses
continuity C n−r , except at the directions of the lines joining neighbour nodes, where it remains
C0.
Proof By definition, if there are two repeated knots,

NII (x) = φI (x)ϕII (x) = φI (x)2 .
Note that the knot I is repeated, so after eliminating it once, another knot I remains, and thus
the equality φI (x) = ϕII (x) holds. In addition, since the original Sibson interpolation function
φI (x) possesses C 0 continuity, so does the function NII (x).
X Y
Z
3 3
4 4
Y X
5 5
6 6
Figure 11. x-derivative of the function NIJ + NJI .
X Y
0
Z
-0.5
3 3
4 4
Y X
5 5
6 6
Figure 12. y-derivative of the function NIJ + NJI .
Since φI (xI )ϕII (xI ) = 1 the interpolation at the data site follows.
0.035
0.03
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
(a)
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
−0.02
−0.04
−0.06
−0.08
−0.1
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
(b)
Figure 13. (a) NIJ + NJI value along the line joining two neighbouring sites. (b) Derivative of the
same expression. Note the small jump in the derivatives near x ≃ 2.8.
By repeating the knots on the boundary of the convex hull of the data sites, for instance,
one can make the surface to be (piecewise) quadratically interpolant along the boundary. The
resulting function NII for a site on the boundary is depicted in Fig. 14.
X Y
0.5
Z
0
1 1
1.5 1.5
2 2
2.5 2.5
Y X
3 3
3.5 3.5
4 4
Figure 14. Interpolating function NII (x) obtained by repeating knots in the boundary of the convex
hull of the data sites. A discontinuity on the derivative appears at the site location.
This last property has again a tremendous importance when using this kind of approximation
in the context of Galerkin procedures, as in the Finite Element method. The use of repeated
knots ensures interpolation (without loss of consistency of the approximation) and thus an easy
imposition of essential boundary conditions and consistent interpolation along the boundary
by simply fixing the value of the approximation at the node (data site).
On the other hand, there is one important property of spline curves that is lost in this
new kind of surfaces, which is the knot insertion. If a new knot is inserted, thus obtaining a
refined control mesh, the obtained surface will not be the same. This phenomenon occurs since
Sibson’s interpolation has not the idempotence property [12].
Remark 5. The same guidelines can be followed in order to prove C n−r continuity in a general
case.
Remark 6. Extension to three or higher dimensions is also straightforward.
7. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
In this section we perform some numerical examples concerning the ability of the proposed
surfaces to approximate data over irregularly scattered knots and also in its application within
linear Elastostatics. All examples employ quadratic approximation only, but, as mentioned
before, extension to higher degrees of consistency is straightforward.
7.1. L2 -fit of a quadratic polynomial

The first numerical example is the least squares fit of the quadratic polynomial (x − 2.5)2 +
(y − 2.5)2 = 0, in order to show that, effectively, the proposed technique spans quadratic
polynomials. Boundary knots are repeated in order to obtain an interpolant surface.
The obtained surface is shown in Fig. 15(a). As expected, the error obtained vanish
identically everywhere in the domain, see Fig. 15(b).
Z ERROR Z
1E-12
7.5E-13
5E-13
2.5E-13
X Y X Y
0
-2.5E-13
-5E-13
4 -7.5E-13
-1E-12
0.01
2 0
V7
-0.01
1 1
2 2
1
Y X
3 3
0
4 4
1 1
1.5 1.5
2 2
2.5 2.5
Y X
3 3
3.5 3.5
4 4
(a) (b)
Figure 15. (a) Surface obtained by a least squares fitting of the polynomial (x − 2.5)2 + (y − 2.5)2 = 0.
Knots are depicted as red spheres. Boundary knots are repeated. (b) Error obtained in the L2 -fit.
The same L2 -fit has been performed with the derivative of the mentioned surface. With
the coefficients obtained before, the approximation of the derivative of the surface through
the derivatives of the NIJ basis functions is achieved. The error in the approximation of the
derivative is again within machine precision (less than 10−14 ), see Fig. 16.
7.2. L2 -fit of a cubic polynomial

The approximation characteristics of the newly proposed surfaces will become more evident
for a polynomial not spanned by the basis. In this example, we consider the least squares fit
of a cubic polynomial by a quadratic surface.
The L2 -fit has been accomplished by means of three different clouds of knots, composed by
25, 49 and 100 knots, respectively. The polynomial fitted was x3 − 2x2 + y 2 − 2y + 1 = 0. The
surface obtained for the 100 knots cloud is depicted in Fig. 17.
The error was sampled over a 33 × 33 points grid over the [1, 5] × [1, 5] square, shown in Fig.
17. Again, repeated knots on the boundary were used. The convergence in the L∞ error norm
is shown in Fig. 18.
7.3. Beam bending

In this example we tested the behaviour of the proposed approximation against the well-known
problem of a cantilever beam under bending subjected to a parabolically distributed load at
one end and fixed at the other end as shown in Fig. 19.
Z Z
X Y X Y
3
4E-14
0
error
Z
2E-14
-1 0
1 1
1.5
-2
2 2
Y 2.5
3 3 X
3.5
-3 4 4
1 1
1.5 1.5
2 2
2.5 2.5
Y 3 3 X
3.5 3.5
4 4
(a) (b)
Figure 16. (a) Approximation of the x-derivative of the surface (x − 2.5)2 + (y − 2.5)2 = 0. (b) Error
obtained in the L2 -fit of the derivatives.
To test the performance of the proposed formulations, we compared the results of the
proposed method with quadratic consistency and the theoretical displacements at the beam
tip [28]. The analytical solution is given by:
P y(L − x)
σx = − (24)
Iz
σy = 0 (25)
P D2
σxy = − y2 (26)
2I 4
and the displacements are given by
Py h D2 i
ux (x, y) = − ′ (6L − 3x)x + (2 + ν ′ ) y 2 − (27)
6E Iz 4
2
P h ′ 2 ′ D x 2
i
uy (x, y) = 3ν y (L − x) + (4 + 5ν ) + (3L − x)x (28)
6E ′ Iz 4
where Iz represents the moment of inertia of the beam, given by Iz = D3 /12. For plane strain
the material parameters are defined as
E
E′ = (29)
(1 − ν 2 )
ν
ν′ = (30)
(1 − ν)
In this case, L = 4.0 and D = 1.0. Young’s modulus was fixed to 1.0 and Poisson’s ratio to
0.25. The discretized beam is shown in Fig. 20.
X Y
60
40
Z
20
1 1
2 2
Y3 3X
4 4
5 5
Figure 17. Surface obtained by L2 -fit of the cubic polynomial x3 − 2x2 + y 2 − 2y + 1 = 0, approximated
by a quadratic surface with 100 knots, irregularly distributed.
For numerical integration purposes, in all the examples shown, a regular background grid of
50 × 50 cells was employed. Each cell was splitted into two triangles and standard three-point
quadrature rules were employed. The objective of this technique is to avoid the numerical
integration errors found in all meshless methods due to the non-polynomial character of the
approximation. The use of the Delaunay triangles as integration cells was found to clearly
insufficient in order to obtain good convergence results.
The convergence results are shown in Fig. 21. Note that the convergence ratio is higher than
a priori expected. This is due to the quadratic form of the solution in vertical direction, which
is reproduced analytically by the quadratic approximation employed. Nevertheless, it indicates
the good approximation properties of the proposed method.
7.4. Infinite plate with a hole

The theoretical solution to this well-known problem can be found in [28], among other classical
books:
a hr a a3 i
u1 (r, θ) = (κ + 1) cos θ + 2 ((1 + κ) cos θ + cos 3θ) − 2 3 cos 3θ (31)
8µ a r r
a r
h a a3 i
u2 (r, θ) = (κ − 3) sin θ + 2 ((1 − κ) sin θ + sin 3θ) − 2 3 sin 3θ (32)
8µ a r r
Log||error||L∞ -1.2
-1.4
-1.6
-1.8
5 6 7 8 9 10
Number of knots1/2
Figure 18. Convergence of the error in L∞ norm for the cubic polynomial fitted by quadratic surfaces.
P
D
x
Figure 19. Geometry of the beam bending problem.
Material parameters were Young’s modulus E=1.0 and Poisson coefficient ν = 0.25. µ
represents the shear modulus and κ is the Kolosov constant, defined as
κ = 3 − 4ν (33)
3−ν
κ= (34)
1+ν
respectively, for plane strain and plane stress.
Applying symmetry conditions, only one quarter of the plate was modelled, and exact
tractions were applied at the boundary of the model. The geometry of the model is shown
in Fig. 22. The plate was discretized with quadratic consistency approximants and, again,
repeated nodes were employed along the essential boundary. The position of the knots
(following the standard B-spline notation, note that they are not “nodes” in the Finite Element
sense) is shown in Fig. 23.
0.5 0.5
0 0
−0.5 −0.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
(a) (b)
0.5 0.5
0 0
−0.5 −0.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
(c) (d)
Figure 20. Discretization of the beam problem: (a) 323 d.o.f. (b) 547 d.o.f. (c) 824 d.o.f. and (d) 942
d.o.f. Note that only the knots (not the nodes or “control points”) have been represented.
-2.6
-2.7 1
-2.8 3.40
log||Error||L2
-2.9
-3 1
3.72
-3.1
-3.2 1
3.75
-3.3
-3.4
15 20 25 30 35
1/2
(Number of degrees of freedom)
Figure 21. Convergence of the results in L2 norm for the beam problem.
The obtained convergence rate (R = 2.96, see Fig. 24) is very close to the theoretical one,
for quadratic consistency.
8. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have proposed a new scheme to generate high-order consistency natural
neighbour approximations. The so called de Boor’s algorithm, which is precisely the same
employed to construct B-spline curves in Computational Geometry, has been employed.
This method is able to generate arbitrary order consistency approximations, conserving
many of the interesting properties of the Natural Element Method, notably the interpolant
x2
s0=1
5
P
r
q
x1
a=1
Figure 22. Geometry of the problem of an infinite plate with a hole under traction.
5 5
4.5 4.5
4 4
3.5 3.5
3 3
2.5 2.5
2 2
1.5 1.5
1 1
0.5 0.5
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5
(a) (b)
5 5
4.5 4.5
4 4
3.5 3.5
3 3
2.5 2.5
2 2
1.5 1.5
1 1
0.5 0.5
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5
(c) (d)
Figure 23. Discretization of the plate with a hole problem: (a) 36 d.o.f. (b) 100 d.o.f. (c) 200 d.o.f. and
(d) 322 d.o.f. Note that only the knots (not the nodes or “control points”) have been represented.
-1.2
-1.4
log ||error||L2
-1.6
-1.8
1
-2 2.96
-2.2
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
1/2
(degrees of freedom)
Figure 24. Convergence of the results in L2 norm for the plate with a hole problem.
character along the boundary. This is achieved, as in B-spline curves, by repeating the
boundary knots defining the surface. Conversely to the B-spline case, continuity is not improved
if standard Sibson interpolants are used, but this can be solved by employing Hiyoshi-Sugihara
interpolants, which are C 1 -continuous at least, but only linearly complete.
The proposed method resembles the isogeometric Finite Element Method by T. Hughes,
in the sense that a new approximation method has been proposed that shares many of its
properties with the B-spline curves. However, the obtention of B-spline surfaces is quite rigid,
since they are constructed by tensor-product patches. In the proposed method, there is no
need of a tensor-product structure, and hence we would speak about an isogeometric meshless
method.
The other objective of the method, namely the generation of arbitrary order consistency
in the context of the NEM, has been achieved. This opens the possibility of p-like adaptive
simulations with NE methods. Obtaining smooth approximations with simpler structure than
that of Hiyoshi and Sugihara [17] is now part of the authors’ current effort of research.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the comments and suggestions made by prof. G. Farin, whose
“splines over iterated Voronoi diagrams” inspired this work. The support to the authors provided
by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and the VI Framework Program of the European
Union is also acknowledged.
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Vor-Splines Natural Element Method

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING

Higher-order Natural Element Methods:

David González1 , Elı́as Cueto1,∗ , Manuel Doblaré1

Received March 2007

2 NATURAL NEIGHBOUR INTERPOLATION 4

3 REVISITING DE BOOR’S ALGORITHM FOR B-SPLINES 9

4 B-SPLINE SURFACES CONSTRUCTED OVER NATURAL NEIGH-

2. NATURAL NEIGHBOUR INTERPOLATION

2.1. Voronoi/Dirichlet diagrams

Figure 1. Delaunay triangulation and Voronoi diagram of a cloud of points.

2.2. Thiessen interpolation

2.3. Sibson’s interpolation

Figure 2. Definition of the Natural Neighbour coordinates of a point x.

2.4. Laplace interpolation

Figure 3. Definition of non-Sibsonian coordinates.

Figure 4. Sibson (a) and Laplace (b) shape functions.

2.5. Hiyoshi-Sugihara interpolant

concept of Laguerre-Voronoi diagram (weighted Voronoi diagrams). Let B = {b1 , b2 , . . . , bn }

πI (x) = ||x − xI || − ̺I . (8)

In Fig. 5, a Laguerre-Voronoi cell is depicted for an evaluation point x surrounded by other

is here labelled as hI , as in Fig. 3. This same distance is labelled as uI in a Laguerre-Voronoi

3. REVISITING DE BOOR’S ALGORITHM FOR B-SPLINES

Figure 6. Hiyoshi-Sugihara interpolants with C 1 (a) and C 2 (b) continuity, respectively.

and t ∈ R, the construction

Figure 7. Schematic representation of the de Boor’s algorithm.

It is well-known [11] that a non-parametric B-spline function d(u) can be written as a

This algorithm will be extended to higher-dimensional cases in the following section.

4. B-SPLINE SURFACES CONSTRUCTED OVER NATURAL NEIGHBOUR

where n represents the number of neighbours of the point x. In addition,

NIJ (x) = φI (x)ϕIJ (x) (18)

4.2. Properties of the proposed surfaces

Proposition 4.2. The functions NIJ form a partition of unity, i.e.,

This property is of utmost importance if this kind of approximation is going to be used

Proof To prove this, we consider an approximation of the type:

Expanding the sums,

Making use of the linear completeness of the Sibson interpolant we arrive at

Proof Let us consider now an approximation of the type:

φI (x)ϕIJ (x) + φJ (x)ϕJI (x)

should be continuously differentiable. By the chain rule,

should be continuous. Evaluating this expression at node I we arrive to:

4.3. The case of repeated knots

Proof By definition, if there are two repeated knots,

Figure 11. x-derivative of the function NIJ + NJI .

Figure 12. y-derivative of the function NIJ + NJI .

7.1. L2 -fit of a quadratic polynomial

7.2. L2 -fit of a cubic polynomial

7.3. Beam bending

7.4. Infinite plate with a hole

Figure 19. Geometry of the beam bending problem.

1. I. Alfaro, D. Bel, E. Cueto, M. Doblaré, and F. Chinesta. Three-dimensional simulation of aluminium

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