The monotony preserving QO‐spline as a taper curve

Abstract

A monotony preserving quadratic spline interpolating at a given point set can be constructed by the so‐called QO‐algorithm. The quality of QO‐splines, which are taper curves constructed by using this algorithm, is investigated. A comparison was made using the program of McAllister & Roulier which produces a shape preserving taper curve by using quadratic splines, too. Tests done on a representative sample tree material indicate that the QO‐spline is in general a better taper curve than the one produced by the program of McAllister & Roulier even if the difference may be small in certain cases.

Key words:

• QO‐algorithm
• quadratic spline
• shape preserving
• interpolation