A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO MULTIVARIATE INTERPOLATION

We present a simple multivariate interpolation scheme of arbitrary dim ensionality based on Mathematica. The only limitation of the scheme is that the data must be distributed over a regular tenser-product grid. Since most software libraries fail to include a multivariate interpol ation scheme that goes beyond three dimensions, the implemented code s hould prove useful in many applications that require interpolation in more than three variables. As an application, we use our program to co nstruct smooth molecular potential-energy functions from data obtained by electronic structure calculations. For the three-dimensional case we compare the interpolants generated by our code to those resulting f rom standard library routines. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.