Multivariate polysplines have applications in the design of surfaces and "smoothing" that are essential in computer aided geometric design (CAGD and CAD/CAM systems), geophysics, magnetism, geodesy, geography, wavelet analysis and signal and image processing. In many cases involving practical data in these areas, polysplines are proving more effective than well-established methods, such as kKriging, radial basis functions, thin plate splines and minimum curvature.
Ognyan Kounchev received his M.S. in partial differential equations from Sofia University, Bulgaria and his Ph.D. in optimal control of partial differential equations and numerical methods from the University of Belarus, Minsk. He was awarded a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation (1996-1999) for studying the applications of partial differential equations in approximation and spline theory. Currently, Dr Kounchev is a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he works in the Wavelet Ideal Data Representation Center in the Department of Computer Sciences.