How to build all Chebyshevian spline spaces good for geometric design?
Résumé
In the present work we determine all Chebyshevian spline spaces good for geometric design. By Chebyshevian spline space we mean a space of splines with sections in different Extended Chebyshev spaces and with connection matrices at the knots. We say that such a spline space is good for design when it possesses blossoms. To justify the terminology, let us recall that, in this general framework, existence of blossoms (defined on a restricted set of tuples) makes it possible to develop all the classical geometric design algorithms for splines. Furthermore, existence of blossoms is equivalent to existence of a B-spline bases both in the spline space itself and in all other spline spaces derived from it by insertion of knots. We show that Chebyshevian spline spaces good for design can be described by linear piecewise differential operators associated with systems of piecewise weight functions, with respect to which the connection matrices are identity matrices. Many interesting consequences can be drawn from the latter characterisation: as an example, all Chebsyhevian spline spaces good for design can be built by means of integral recurrence relations.