Take an hammer and some nails, fix the nails and try to
make a piece of wood go through all the nails. You'll get a B spline...
Spline [n.] : A flexible strip (wood or rubber) used in drawing curved lines.
Control Pointsa set of points that influence the curve's shapeKnotscontrol points that lie on the curveInterpolating splinecurve passes through the control points knotsApproximating splinecontrol points merely influence shapeConvex Hullconvex polygon boundary that encloses a set of control points |
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If some data points are used to construct a curve the curve can either pass through the points, in which case the curve is interpolating, or the points can just be used to control the general shape of the curve and the curve doesn't actually pass through the points, in which case the curve is approximating.