Simple Interpolation in Numpy?

[Steve Holden]

LAPI, VINCENT J, ATTLABS wrote:
> Hi,
> Please bear with me as I am new to Python and have not done any 
> programming in about 20 years. I am attempting to do a simple 
> interpolation of  a line's intermediate points given the x,y coordinates 
> of the line's two endpoints within an Active State Python script that I 
> am working with. Is there a simple way to do this simple interpolation 
> in the Active state Python 2.4 that I have or do I need to get Numeric 
> Python? And where do I get it?
> Thanks,
> Vince Lapi
> 
You shouldn't really *need* Numeric (NumPy or numpy, nowadays) for a 
relatively simple problem like that, since the formulae involved are 
pretty simple.

Given known points on the line at (xa, ya) and (xb, yb) then for any 
point (x, y) on the line we get

   y = ya + ((x - xa) * (yb - ya))/(xb - xa)

So you just need to plug the values for x and the known points into the 
formula to get the interpolated value of y.

If you are interpolating a non-linear formula through a number of 
samples clearly there'd be a little more jiggery pokery involved to 
identify the particular interval on which interpolation is required, but 
nothing horrendous.

Numpy, which is derived from the old Numeric code, is at

   http://numpy.scipy.org/

should you wish to investigate its features. It probably has 
better-than-linear interpolation algorithms in it. Note that if you 
decide to download it you should choose the Python 2.4 version - 
extensions coded in compiled languages are specific to a particular 
version of the language.

regards
  Steve
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