On the approximation order of a space data-dependent PH quintic Hermite interpolation scheme

Dealing with Pythagorean Hodograph quintic Hermite interpolation in the space, we deepen the analysis of the so-called CC criterion proposed in Farouki et al. (2008) for fixing the two free angular parameters characterizing the set of possible solutions, which remarkably influence the shape of the chosen interpolant. Such criterion is easy to implement, guarantees the reproduction of the standard cubic Hermite interpolant when it is a PH curve and usually allows the selection of interpolants with good shape. Here we first rigorously prove that the PH interpolant it selects doesnʼt depend on the unit pure vector chosen for representing its hodograph in quaternion form. Then we evaluate the corresponding interpolation scheme from a theoretical point of view, proving with the help of symbolic computation that it has fourth approximation order. A selection of experiments related to the spline implementation of the method confirms our analysis.

► The approximation order of the CC data-dependent criterion for PH quintic space Hermite interpolation is studied, proving that it is four for smooth curves.
► The independence of the selection criterion on the unit vector used for the quaternion representation of the PH hodograph is also proved.
► A C1C1 spline extension of the scheme is considered for the experiments.