## NAME

s.vol.rst

- Interpolates point data to a G3D grid volume using regularised splines with tension (RST) algorithm
(GRASS 3D Program)

## SYNOPSIS

s.vol.rst input=

name [cellinp=name] [field=value] [tension=value] [smooth=value] [maskmap= name] [segmax=value] [dmin=value] [npmin=value] [wmult=value] [zmult=value] [cellout=name] [elev=name] [gradient=name] [aspect1=name] [aspect2=name] [ncurv=name] [gcurv=name] [mcurv=name]

## DESCRIPTION

s.vol.rst

interpolates the values to 3-dimensional grid from point data (climatic stations, drill holes etc.) given in a 3D sites file named input. Output g3d file is elev. The 3-dimensional grid is given by the current 3D region. If the options cellinp and cellout are specified then the output raster file cellout contains crossection of interpolated volume with surface defined by input cell file cellinp. As an option, simultaneously with interpolation, geometric parameters magnitude of gradient, both aspects, change of gradient, Gauss-Kronecker curvature, or mean curvature are computed and saved as g3d file as specified by the options gradient, aspect1, aspect2, ncurv, gcurv, mcurv respectively.

At first, data points are checked for identical points and points that are closer to each other than given dmin are removed. Parameters wmult and zmult allow user to re-scale the w-values and z-values for sites (useful e.g. for transformation of elevations given in feet to meters, so that the proper values of gradient and curvatures can be computed).

Regularized spline with tension is used for the interpolation. The tension parameter tunes the character of the resulting volume from thin plate to membrane. Higher values of tension parameter reduce the overshoots that can appear in volumes with rapid change of gradient. For noisy data, it is possible to define a smoothing parameter, smooth. With the smoothing parameter set to zero (smooth=0) the resulting volume passes exactly through the data points.

User can define a 2D raster file named maskmap, which will be used as a mask. The interpolation is skipped for 3-dimensional cells whose 2-dimensional projection has zero value in mask. Zero values will be assigned to these cells in all output g3d files.

If the number of given points is greater than 400, segmented processing is used. The region is split into 3-dimensional "box" segments, each having less than segmax points and interpolation is performed on each segment of the region. To ensure the smooth connection of segments the interpolation function for each segment is computed using the points in given segment and the points in its neighborhood. The minimum number of points taken for interpolation is controlled by npmin , the value of which must be larger than segmax and less than 400. This limit of 400 was selected to ensure the numerical stability and efficiency of the algorithm.

s.vol.rst uses regularized spline with tension for interpolation from point data (as described in Mitasova and Mitas, 1993). The implementation has an improved segmentation procedure based on Oct-trees which enhances the efficiency for large data sets.

Geometric parameters - magnitude of gradient (gradient), horizontal (aspect1) and vertical (aspect2) aspects, change of gradient (ncurv), Gauss-Kronecker (gcurv) and mean curvatures (mcurv) are computed directly from the interpolation function so that the important relationships between these parameters are preserved. More information on these parameters can be found in Mitasova et al., 1995 or Thorpe, 1979.

The program gives warning when significant overshoots appear and higher tension should be used. However, with tension too high the resulting volume changes its behavior to membrane( rubber sheet stretched over the data points resulting in a peak in each given point and everywhere else the volume goes rapidly to trend). With smoothing parameter greater than zero the volume will not pass through the data points and the higher the parameter the closer the volume will be to the trend. For theory on smoothing with splines see Talmi and Gilat, 1977 or Wahba, 1990.

If a visible connection of segments appears, the program should be rerun with higher npmin to get more points from the neighborhood of given segment.

If the number of points in a site file is less then 400, segmax should be set to 400 so that segmentation is not performed when it is not necessary.

The program gives warning when user wants to interpolate outside the "box" given by minimum and maximum coordinates in site file, zoom into the area where the points are is suggested in this case.

For large data sets (thousands of data points) it is suggested to zoom into a smaller representative area and test whether the parameters chosen (e.g. defaults) are appropriate.

The user must run g3.region before the program to set the region for interpolation.

### Parameters:

input
  Name of the site file (format see NOTES below)
field
  decimal attribute to use for value w (1=first) options (1-100), default is 1.
cellinp
  Name of the surface cell file to use for crossection
tension
  Tension
  Default: 40
smooth
  Smoothing parameter
  Default: 0.1
maskmap
  Name of the raster file used as mask
segmax
  Max number of points in segment (=400)
  Default: 50
dmin
  Min distance between points (extra points ignored)
  Default: Default value is set to 0.5 cell size.
npmin
  Min number of points for interpolation
  Default: 200
wmult
  Conversion factor for w-values
  Default: 1.0
zmult
  Conversion factor for z-values
  Default: 1.0
cellout
  Name of the crossection cell file
elev
  Elevation g3d-file
gradient
  Gradient g3d-file
aspect1
  Aspect1 g3d-file
aspect2
  Aspect2 g3d-file
ncurv
  Change of gradient g3d-file
gcurv
  Gauss-Kronecker curvature g3d-file
mcurv
  Mean curvature g3d-file

## NOTES

The sites volume format is as follows:

       x|y|z|#n %w1 %w2 %w3

with x,y,z (spatial coordinates), n (optional integer number) and w (data values).

## SEE ALSO

g3.region, s.in.ascii, s.vol.idw, r3.mask

## AUTHOR

Original version of program (in FORTRAN) and GRASS enhancements:
Lubos Mitas, NCSA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA, lubos_mitas@ncsu.edu
Helena Mitasova, Department of Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA, hmitaso@unity.ncsu.edu

Modified program (translated to C, adapted for GRASS, new segmentation procedure):
Irina Kosinovsky, US Army CERL, Champaign, Illinois, USA
Dave Gerdes, US Army CERL, Champaign, Illinois, USA

Modifications for g3d library, geometric parameters:
Jaro Hofierka, GeoModel s.r.o., Bratislava, Slovakia, hofierka@geomodel.sk, http://www.geomodel.sk

## REFERENCES

Mitas, L., Mitasova, H., 1999, Spatial Interpolation. In: P.Longley, M.F. Goodchild, D.J. Maguire, D.W.Rhind (Eds.), Geographical Information Systems: Principles, Techniques, Management and Applications, Wiley, pp.481-492

Mitas L., Brown W. M., Mitasova H., 1997, Role of dynamic cartography in simulations of landscape processes based on multi-variate fields. Computers and Geosciences, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 437-446 (includes CDROM and WWW: www.elsevier.nl/locate/cgvis)

Mitasova H., Mitas L., Brown W.M., D.P. Gerdes, I. Kosinovsky, Baker, T.1995, Modeling spatially and temporally distributed phenomena: New methods and tools for GRASS GIS. International Journal of GIS, 9 (4), special issue on Integrating GIS and Environmental modeling, 433-446.

Helena Mitasova, Lubos Mitas, Bill Brown, Irina Kosinovsky, Terry Baker, Dave Gerdes (1994): Multidimensional interpolation and visualization in GRASS GIS

Mitasova H. and Mitas L. 1993: Interpolation by Regularized Spline with Tension: I. Theory and Implementation, Mathematical Geology 25, 641-655.

Mitasova H. and Hofierka J. 1993: Interpolation by Regularized Spline with Tension: II. Application to Terrain Modeling and Surface Geometry Analysis, Mathematical Geology 25, 657-667.

Mitasova, H., 1992 : New capabilities for interpolation and topographic analysis in GRASS, GRASSclippings 6, No.2 (summer), p.13.

Wahba, G., 1990, : Spline Models for Observational Data, CNMS-NSF Regional Conference series in applied mathematics, 59, SIAM, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Mitas, L., Mitasova H., 1988 : General variational approach to the interpolation problem, Computers and Mathematics with Applications 16, p. 983

Talmi, A. and Gilat, G., 1977 : Method for Smooth Approximation of Data, Journal of Computational Physics, 23, p.93-123.

Thorpe, J. A. (1979): Elementary Topics in Differential Geometry. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp. 6-94.

Last changed: $Date: 2002/03/01 00:27:45 $