Calculate the discrete Laplace operator.
For a 2-dimensional matrix M this is defined as
1 / d^2 d^2 \ D = --- * |--- M(x,y) + --- M(x,y) | 4 \ dx^2 dy^2 /
For N-dimensional arrays the sum in parentheses is expanded to include second derivatives over the additional higher dimensions.
The spacing between evaluation points may be defined by h, which is a scalar defining the equidistant spacing in all dimensions. Alternatively, the spacing in each dimension may be defined separately by dx, dy, etc. A scalar spacing argument defines equidistant spacing, whereas a vector argument can be used to specify variable spacing. The length of the spacing vectors must match the respective dimension of M. The default spacing value is 1.
At least 3 data points are needed for each dimension. Boundary points are calculated from the linear extrapolation of interior points.
See also: gradient, diff.
Package: octave