Natural bicubic spline fractal interpolation

Fractal Interpolation functions provide natural deterministic approximation of complex phenomena. Cardinal cubic splines are developed through moments (i.e. second derivative of the original function at mesh points). Using tensor product, bicubic spline fractal interpolants are constructed that successfully generalize classical natural bicubic splines. An upper bound of the difference between the natural cubic spline blended fractal interpolant and the original function is deduced. In addition, the convergence of natural bicubic fractal interpolation functions towards the original function providing the data is studied. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.