As is known, the book named "Multivariate spline functions and their applications" has been published by the Science Press in 1994. This book is an English edition based on the original book mentioned 1 above with many changes, including that of the structure of a cubic - interpolation in n-dimensional spline spaces, and more detail on triangu lations have been added in this book. Special cases of multivariate spline functions (such as step functions, polygonal functions, and piecewise polynomials) have been examined math ematically for a long time. I. J. Schoenberg (Contribution to the problem of application of equidistant data by analytic functions, Quart. Appl. Math., 4(1946), 45 - 99; 112 - 141) and W. Quade & L. Collatz (Zur Interpo lations theories der reellen periodischen function, Press. Akad. Wiss. (PhysMath. KL), 30(1938), 383- 429) systematically established the the ory of the spline functions. W. Quade & L. Collatz mainly discussed the periodic functions, while I. J. Schoenberg's work was systematic and com plete. I. J. Schoenberg outlined three viewpoints for studing univariate splines: Fourier transformations, truncated polynomials and Taylor ex pansions. Based on the first two viewpoints, I. J. Schoenberg deduced the B-spline function and its basic properties, especially the basis func tions. Based on the latter viewpoint, he represented the spline functions in terms of truncated polynomials. These viewpoints and methods had significantly effected on the development of the spline functions.
