June 20, 2009...1:13 PM

How do I do spline interpolation in MATLAB?

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Many students ask me how do I do this or that in MATLAB.  So I thought why not have a small series of my next few blogs do that.  In this blog, I show you how to conduct spline interpolation.

  • The MATLAB program link is here.
  • The HTML version of the MATLAB program is here.
  • DO NOT COPY AND PASTE THE PROGRAM BELOW BECAUSE THE SINGLE QUOTES DO NOT TRANSLATE TO THE CORRECT SINGLE QUOTES IN MATLAB EDITOR.  DOWNLOAD THE MATLAB PROGRAM INSTEAD

%% HOW DO I DO THAT IN MATLAB SERIES?
% In this series, I am answering questions that students have asked
% me about MATLAB.  Most of the questions relate to a mathematical
% procedure.

%% TOPIC
% How do I do spline interpolation?

%% SUMMARY

% Language : Matlab 2008a;
% Authors : Autar Kaw;
% Mfile available at
% http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu/blog/interpolate_spline.m;
% Last Revised : June 20, 2009;
% Abstract: This program shows you how to do spline interpolation?
%           .
clc
clear all
clf

%% INTRODUCTION

disp(‘ABSTRACT’)
disp(‘   This program shows you how to do spline interpolation?’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘AUTHOR’)
disp(‘   Autar K Kaw of http://autarkaw.wordpress.com’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘MFILE SOURCE’)
disp(‘   http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu/blog/interpolation_spline.m’)
disp(‘ ‘)
disp(‘LAST REVISED’)
disp(‘   June 20, 2009′)
disp(‘ ‘)

%% INPUTS
% y vs x data to interpolate
% x data
x=[-1  -0.75  -0.5  -0.25   0.25  0.50 0.75  1];
% ydata
y=[-0.5  -0.5  -0.5  -0.5   0.5  0.5  0.5  0.5];
% Where do you want to interpolate at
xin=[-0.8  -0.7  0.7  0.8];
%% DISPLAYING INPUTS
disp(‘INPUTS’)
disp(‘The x data’)
x
disp(‘The y data’)
y
disp(‘The x values where you want to find the interpolated values’)
xin
disp(‘  ‘)

%% THE CODE
% Fitting to spline – it is cubic splines
yin=spline(x,y,xin);
% This is only for plotting the spline interpolants
% Find the number of data points
n=length(x);
xplot=x(1):(x(n)-x(1))/10000:x(n);
yplot=spline(x,y,xplot);

%% DISPLAYING OUTPUTS
disp(‘  ‘)
disp(‘OUTPUTS’)
disp(‘x values at which function is to be interpolated’)
xin
disp(‘y values at the xin values’)
yin
xlabel(‘x’);
ylabel(‘y’);
title(‘y vs x ‘);
plot(x,y,’o',’MarkerSize’,10,’MarkerEdgeColor’,'b’,'MarkerFaceColor’,'b’)
hold on
plot(xin,yin,’o',’MarkerSize’,10,’MarkerEdgeColor’,'r’,'MarkerFaceColor’,'r’)
hold on
plot(xplot,yplot,’LineWidth’,2)
legend(‘Points given’,'Points found’,'Spline Curve’,'Location’,'East’)
hold off
disp(‘  ‘)

This post is brought to you by Holistic Numerical Methods: Numerical Methods for the STEM undergraduate at http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu, the textbook on Numerical Methods with Applications available from the lulu storefront, and the YouTube video lectures available at http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu/videos and http://www.youtube.com/numericalmethodsguy

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1 Comment

  • Hi, my name is Mel. First of all, thank you very much in advance. And, I hope you could please response if you have any ideas/opinions regarding this mail as I’m a new Matlab user. So, I need your guidance, simple examples since you’re an expert.

    Please, I would like to ask your help on how to code using Matlab for two – dimensional heat equation version based on the following one – dimensional heat equation version.

    clear all; clc;
    %n=number of points, Nstep=time-step
    n=100;
    Nstep=20;
    %L=length of domain, k=heat diffusivity
    L=1;
    k=0.01;
    %define dx and x
    dx=2*L/(n-1);
    dt=(0.46*dx^2)/k;
    x=-L:dx:L;
    %initial
    for I=2:n-1
    if I52
    u(I)=0
    else
    u(I)=1;
    end
    end
    u(1)=0;u(n)=0;
    % store profile for computing and display
    v=u;
    v_initial=u;
    title_str=’Heat equation:u_t-\kappa u_{xx}=0′;
    %initialization u and v
    plot(x,v_initial, ‘-’,'linewidth’,2);
    set(gca, ‘fontsize’,14,’fontweight’,'bold’);
    title(title_str);
    axis tight;
    set(gca,’nextplot’,'replacechildren’);
    %time step
    for time=1:Nstep
    %end points
    uxx(1)=v(2)-2*v(1)+v(n)
    uxx(n)=v(1)-2*v(2)+v(n-1)
    %interior points
    for I=2:n-1
    uxx(I)=v(I+1)-2*v(I)+v(I-1)
    end
    %rule
    u=v+k*uxx;
    %update v
    v=u;
    %plot
    plot(x,v_initial,’-',x,u,’linewidth’,2);
    picture(time)=getframe;
    end
    %display movie
    disp(‘Playing animation…’);
    movie(picture,1);


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