Knot insertion from a blossoming point of view

Abstract The subdivision of B-spline curves is discussed from the viewpoint of multiaffine mappings. A formula is derived that expresses the de Boor points of a refined B-spline curve in terms of blossoms. As an application a new proof of Boehm's insertion algorithm is given. Finally, the well known relation between multiple knot insertion and the de Boor algorithm is studied from a blossom point of view.