Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.
This chapter describes routines for computing Chebyshev approximations to univariate functions. A Chebyshev approximation is a truncation of the series f(x) = \sum c_n T_n(x), where the Chebyshev polynomials T_n(x) = \cos(n \arccos x) provide an orthogonal basis of polynomials on the interval [-1,1] with the weight function 1 / \sqrt{1-x^2}. The first few Chebyshev polynomials are, T_0(x) = 1, T_1(x) = x, T_2(x) = 2 x^2 - 1.
The functions described in this chapter are declared in the header file `gsl_chebyshev.h'.
A Chebyshev series is stored using the following structure,
typedef struct { double * c; /* coefficients c[0] .. c[order] */ int order; /* order of expansion */ double a; /* lower interval point */ double b; /* upper interval point */ } gsl_cheb_struct
The approximation is made over the range [a,b] using order+1 terms, including the coefficient c[0].
gsl_cheb_series
struct.
The following functions allow a Chebyshev series to be differentiated or integrated, producing a new Chebyshev series. Note that the error estimate produced by evaluating the derivative series will be underestimated due to the contribution of higher order terms being neglected.
The following example program computes Chebyshev approximations to a step function. This is an extremely difficult approximation to make, due to the discontinuity, and was chosen as an example where approximation error is visible. For smooth functions the Chebyshev approximation converges extremely rapidly and errors would not be visible.
#include <stdio.h> #include <gsl/gsl_math.h> #include <gsl/gsl_chebyshev.h> double f (double x, void *p) { if (x < 0.5) return 0.25; else return 0.75; } int main (void) { int i, n = 10000; gsl_cheb_series *cs = gsl_cheb_alloc (40); gsl_function F; F.function = f; F.params = 0; gsl_cheb_init (cs, &F, 0.0, 1.0); for (i = 0; i < n; i++) { double x = i / (double)n; double r10 = gsl_cheb_eval_n (cs, 10, x); double r40 = gsl_cheb_eval (cs, x); printf ("%g %g %g %g\n", x, GSL_FN_EVAL (&F, x), r10, r40); } gsl_cheb_free (cs); return 0; }
The output from the program gives the original function, 10-th order approximation and 40-th order approximation, all sampled at intervals of 0.001 in x.
The following paper describes the use of Chebyshev series,
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.