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Using a stereographical projection to the plane we construct an O(N log(N)) algorithm to approximate scattered data in N points by orthogonal, compactly supported wavelets on the surface of a 2-sphere or a local subset of it. In fact, the sphere is not treated all at once, but is split into subdomains whose results are combined afterwards. After choosing the center of the area of interest the scattered data points are mapped from the sphere to the tangential plane through that point. By combining a k-nearest neighbor search algorithm and the two dimensional fast wavelet transform a fast approximation of the data is computed and mapped back to the sphere. The algorithm is tested with nearly 1 million data points and yields an approximation with 0.35% relative errors in roughly 2 minutes on a standard computer using our MATLAB implementation. The method is very flexible and allows the application of the full range of two dimensional wavelets.
In engineering and science, a multitude of problems exhibit an inherently geometric nature. The computational assessment of such problems requires an adequate representation by means of data structures and processing algorithms. One of the most widely adopted and recognized spatial data structures is the Delaunay triangulation which has its canonical dual in the Voronoi diagram. While the Voronoi diagram provides a simple and elegant framework to model spatial proximity, the core of which is the concept of natural neighbors, the Delaunay triangulation provides robust and efficient access to it. This combination explains the immense popularity of Voronoi- and Delaunay-based methods in all areas of science and engineering. This thesis addresses aspects from a variety of applications that share their affinity to the Voronoi diagram and the natural neighbor concept. First, an idea for the generalization of B-spline surfaces to unstructured knot sets over Voronoi diagrams is investigated. Then, a previously proposed method for \(C^2\) smooth natural neighbor interpolation is backed with concrete guidelines for its implementation. Smooth natural neighbor interpolation is also one of many applications requiring derivatives of the input data. The generation of derivative information in scattered data with the help of natural neighbors is described in detail. In a different setting, the computation of a discrete harmonic function in a point cloud is considered, and an observation is presented that relates natural neighbor coordinates to a continuous dependency between discrete harmonic functions and the coordinates of the point cloud. Attention is then turned to integrating the flexibility and meritable properties of natural neighbor interpolation into a framework that allows the algorithmically transparent and smooth extrapolation of any known natural neighbor interpolant. Finally, essential properties are proved for a recently introduced novel finite element tessellation technique in which a Delaunay triangulation is transformed into a unique polygonal tessellation.