University of Georgia

Mathematics Department Colloquium

Oleg Davydov

The University of Giessen, Germany

March 23, 2000

Smooth Piecewise Polynomial Multiresolution Analysis on Irregular Triangulations


Abstract: Both hierarchical bases and wavelets have as a prerequisite a multiresolution analysis on the underlying nested sequence of triangulations. The spaces of piecewise polynomials are a natural tool for the construction of the multiresolution analysis. In particular, if the bases are only required to be continuous, usual finite-element spaces can be used. In contrast to this, smooth conforming finite elements, such as Argyris element, are not suitable due to the fact that the corresponding spaces of piecewise polynomials are not nested. The idea to make use of the basis of the full space of $C^1$-splines $S^1_d(\triangle)$ instead is due to Dahmen, Oswald \& Shi (1994). However, the Morgan-Scott basis for $S^1_d(\triangle)$ used in their work appears to be instable if the triangulations have so-called near-degenerate edges and near-singular vertices. Therefore, the triangulation has to be refined in such a way (e.g., uniformly) that these geometrical configurations do not appear. We discuss a recent construction (joint work with L.~L.~Schumaker) of a stable local basis for $C^1$ and, more general, $C^r$-splines, $r\ge1$, which can be used to build stable multiresolution analyses on arbitrary nested sequences of triangulations, with the only restriction that the smallest angle of the triangles is controlled. In particular, this construction applies to adaptively refined triangulations.