CURVE FITTING : AN

OVERVIEW OF SOME NICE

SOFTWARE

Paulius Gebrauskas

Vilnius, 2018
 Content

▣ Concept of Curve Fitting

▣ Types of Curve Fitting
▣ Interpolation
▣ Extrapolation
▣ Smoothing
▣ Curve Fitting Software
▣ MATLAB Toolbox
 Concept of Curve Fitting

“
▣ „Curve fitting is the process of constructing a
curve, or mathematical function, that has the
best fit to a series of data points, possibly
subject to constraints“ – Wikipedia.com

Interpolation Extrapolation Smoothing

 Types of Curve Fitting
Fitting functions
to data points Algebraic fit
Polynomial curves fitting
points generated with a sine
function. Red line is a first
degree polynomial, green line
is second degree, orange line
is third degree and blue is
fourth degree
Surface applications
Fitting planes
curves to data
points
y = ax + b Fit through two points
y = ax2 + bx + c Fit through three points
y = ax3 + bx2 + cx + d Fit through four points –
four constraints

Cloverleaf design
Opening Europe's
first cloverleaf (1935)
at Slussen, Stockholm
Probability density
function (Gaussian Probability density
function) function (Voigt
function)
 Types of Curve Fitting
Fitting functions Surface applications
to data points Algebraic fit Fitting planes
curves to data
points

Okun's law in macroeconomics

states that in an economy the GDP
growth should depend linearly on
the changes in the unemployment
rate. Here the ordinary least
squares method is used to
construct the regression line
describing this law
 Types of Curve Fitting
Fitting functions Surface applications
to data points Algebraic fit Fitting planes
curves to data
points
 Curve Fitting. Interpolation
Piecewise constant Linear Polynomial Spline

x 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
f(x) 0 0.8415 0.9093 0.1411 -0.7568 -0.9589 -0.2794
 Curve Fitting. Interpolation
Piecewise constant Linear Polynomial Spline

x 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
f(x) 0 0.8415 0.9093 0.1411 -0.7568 -0.9589 -0.2794

𝑥−𝑥𝑎
𝑦 = 𝑦𝑎 + 𝑦𝑏 − 𝑦𝑎 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡 (𝑥, 𝑦)
𝑥𝑏 −𝑥𝑎

𝑦 − 𝑦𝑎 𝑥 − 𝑥𝑎
=
𝑦𝑏 − 𝑦𝑎 𝑥𝑏 − 𝑥𝑎

𝑦 − 𝑦𝑎 𝑦𝑏 − 𝑦𝑎
=
𝑥 − 𝑥𝑎 𝑥𝑏 − 𝑥𝑎
 Curve Fitting. Interpolation
Piecewise constant Linear Polynomial Spline

x 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
f(x) 0 0.8415 0.9093 0.1411 -0.7568 -0.9589 -0.2794

𝑓 𝑥 = −0.0001521𝑥 6 − 0.003130𝑥 5 + 0.07321𝑥 4 − 0.3577𝑥 3 + 0.2255𝑥 2 + 0.9038𝑥

f(2.5) = 0.5965

a b

Figure a. Plot of the data with polynomial interpolation applied;

Figure b. Plot of the data with spline interpolation applied.

 Curve Fitting. Extrapolation
Linear Polynomial Conic French curve
 Curve Fitting. Extrapolation
Linear Polynomial Conic French curve
 Curve Fitting. Smoothing
Extract more information Flexible and robust analysis
from the data

An example of two moving average curves

Software: CumFreq

Best use -
Probability
distribution
fitting
 Software: DataScene

DataScene Express Edition

Best use -
Scientific
animation,
data analysis
and
monitoring
 Software: Fityk

Fityk 0.9.8 and older Best use -

Fitting
analytical and
bell-shaped
functions
 Software: FlexPro

From 590 €
(FlexPro View)

Best use -
Analyzing large
amounts of data,
processing millions
of measurement
values in seconds
 Software: GLIM

GLIM was developed by a working group of the Royal

Statistical Society under the chairmanship of John
Nelder in the 1970s and implemented initially as a
software package called GLIM (no longer available). It
provides a form of unified statistical model,
incorporating General Linear Models (GLMs) but also
incorporating models that deal with count data,
proportion data and binary data.
 Software: IGOR Pro

From 175$ as an academic

price (IGOR Pro 7
Upgrade)

Best use - Graphical

capability of generating
plots
 Software: MagicPlot

MagicPlot Student Best use - Wide use of

graphical user interface
for data analysis
Software: Maple

From 100 € for students

(Maple 2018 Student
Edition)

Best use - Symbolic and numeric

computing, data analysis
Software: MATLAB

From 35 € student
license (MATLAB)

Best use - Matrix

manipulations, function and
data plotting, algorithm
implementation
 Software: Origin

From 29.25$ student license

for 6 months

Best use - Interactive scientific

graphing and data analysis
Software: SimFiT

Best use - Simulation,

curve fitting, statistics,
plotting
 Software: TableCurve 2D

From 295 £ academic

edition (TableCurve 2D)

Best use – Non-linear and

linear curve fitting
processes and graphing
Software: Wolfram Mathematica

From €145 for a student

(Wolfram Mathematica)
Best use - Technical
computing
 MATLAB Toolbox

..It goes on and on…

Thank you for your
attention!