Interpolation error estimates in terms of geometric quality measures are established for harmonic coordinates on polytopes in two and three dimensions. First we derive interpolation error estimates over convex polygons that depend on the geometric quality of the triangles in the constrained Delaunay triangulation of the polygon. This characterization is sharp in the sense that families of polygons with poor quality triangles in their constrained Delaunay triangulations are shown to produce large error when interpolating a basic quadratic function. Non-convex polygons exhibit a similar limitation: large constrained Delaunay triangles caused by vertices approaching a non-adjacent edge also lead to large interpolation error. While this relationship is generalized to convex polyhedra in three dimensions, the possibility of sliver tetrahedra in the constrained Delaunay triangulation prevent the analogous estimate from sharply reflecting the actual interpolation error. Non-convex polyhedra are shown to be fundamentally different through an example of a family of polyhedra containing vertices which are arbitrarily close to non-adjacent faces yet the interpolation error remains bounded.

This paper is concerned with the anisotropic singular behaviour of the solution of elliptic boundary value problems near edges. The paper deals first with the description of the analytic properties of the solution in newly defined, anisotropically weighted Sobolev spaces. The finite element method with anisotropic, graded meshes and piecewise linear shape functions is then investigated for such problems; the schemes exhibit optimal convergence rates with decreasing mesh size. For the proof, new local interpolation error estimates in anisotropically weighted spaces are derived. Moreover, it is shown that the condition number of the stiffness matrix is not affected by the mesh grading. Finally, a numerical experiment is described, that shows a good agreement of the calculated approximation orders with the theoretically predicted ones.

In this paper, several modifications of the quasi-interpolation operator of Scott and Zhang (Math. Comp. 54(1990)190, 483--493) are discussed. The modified operators are defined for non-smooth functions and are suited for the application on anisotropic meshes. The anisotropy of the elements is reflected in the local stability and approximation error estimates. As an application, an example is considered where anisotropic finite element meshes are appropriate, namely the Poisson problem in domains with edges.