Quasi-interpolation in Riemannian manifolds

We consider quasi-interpolation operators for functions assuming their values in a Riemannian manifold. We construct such operators from corresponding linear quasi-interpolation operators by replacing affine averages with the Riemannian centre of mass. As a main result, we show that the approximation rate of such a nonlinear operator is the same as for the linear operator it has been derived from. In order to formulate this result in an intrinsic way, we use the Sasaki metric to compare the derivatives of the function to be approximated with the derivatives of the nonlinear approximant. Numerical experiments confirm our theoretical findings.