Help understanding interp2?
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Troy McClure
on 15 Jun 2020
Commented: Troy McClure
on 16 Jun 2020
Can someone explain to me how interp2(X,Y,V,Xq,Yq) works? I've read the matlab docs, but they aren't very clear. Can anyone explain how it works more plainly?
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Accepted Answer
John D'Errico
on 15 Jun 2020
Edited: John D'Errico
on 15 Jun 2020
Interp2 is a tool that allows you to interpolate on a gridded domain. So a grid based on meshgrid, in the (x,y) plane. The presumption is you have some array V, that defines V(x,y).
Xq and Yq are now a list of points to interpolate over that grid.
Interp2 is NOT there to interpolate over scattered data points, thus a point cloud in the (x,y) plane. That purpose is served by tools like griddata and scatteredInterpolant.
3 Comments
John D'Errico
on 16 Jun 2020
Edited: John D'Errico
on 16 Jun 2020
[x,y] = meshgrid(0:2,0:3)
x =
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
0 1 2
y =
0 0 0
1 1 1
2 2 2
3 3 3
z = x.^2 + y.^2
z =
0 1 4
1 2 5
4 5 8
9 10 13
Given only the gridded lattice in the (x,y) plane, you have created z(x,y). Do you accept that?
Interp2 alllows you to compute z(1.5,2.3), given only the information in the arrays x, y, and z. This is called interpolation. Of course it will not be exact, but a relatively coarse approximation, since the true underlying function is not known. (At least it is not known to interp2.)
interp2(x,y,z,1.5,2.3)
ans =
8
1.5^2 + 2.3^2
ans =
7.54
As I said, not a perfect approximation, but the default for interp2 is a tensor product linear interpolant. A spline interpolant will do better.
interp2(x,y,z,1.5,2.3,'spline')
ans =
7.54
Since the function was truly quadratic, logically a cubic spline interpolant would do pretty well.
If none of this still makes any sense, then you need to do some serious reading about interpolation in multiple dimensions.
More Answers (1)
madhan ravi
on 15 Jun 2020
Edited: madhan ravi
on 15 Jun 2020
V(X,Y) -> function Xq & Yq are query points
query points -> what would be the functions value at these points.
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