Fast and accurate interpolation of large scattered data sets on the sphere

In this paper a new efficient algorithm for spherical interpolation of large scattered data sets is presented. The solution method is local and involves a modified spherical Shepard’s interpolant, which uses zonal basis functions as local approximants. The associated algorithm is implemented and optimized by applying a nearest neighbour searching procedure on the sphere. Specifically, this technique is mainly based on the partition of the sphere in a suitable number of spherical zones, the construction of spherical caps as local neighbourhoods for each node, and finally the employment of a spherical zone searching procedure. Computational cost and storage requirements of the spherical algorithm are analyzed. Moreover, several numerical results show the good accuracy of the method and the high efficiency of the proposed algorithm.