Interpolation In Excel How To Interpolate Data In Excel Example

Interpolation in Excel

Example of Data Interpolation in Excel

To understand the concept of data interpolation in Excel, let us look at the below example. In a farmhouse, a farmer is growing paddy. He keeps tracking the growth of the paddy.

The farmer has recorded below-trend growth of the paddy in 20 days, where he has registered growth once every 4 days.

From the above table, a farmer wants to know how tall the paddy was on the 5th day.

The above graph easily shows the linear growth pattern of the paddy. But if the paddy has grown in a linear pattern, it is tough to predict the 5th-day growth.

Based on the above curve, farmers cannot estimate what the 5th-day growth was. So, this is where our Interpolation Interpolation Interpolation is the mathematical procedure applied to derive value in between two points having a prescribed value. It approximates the value of a given function at a given set of discrete points. It can be applied in estimating varied concepts of cost, mathematics, statistics.read moreconcept helps us find the development on the 5th day.

For interpolation, we have a below formula.

Here, we have two variables, i.e., X1 & Y1. “X” is the first set of values, and “Y” is the second set of values.

In our example of paddy growth, the first set of values is (4,2). So here, “4” is the day, and “2” is the growth inches of the paddy.

The second set of values is (8,4). Here, “8” is the day, and “4” is the growth inches of the paddy.

Since we need to find the growth on the 5th-day variable, “x” becomes 5 to the growth inches variable “y.”

So, let us apply the values to the above formula.

Now do the first step calculation.

Note “x” is equal to

Linear Interpolation in Excel

The same Linear interpolation in excelLinear Interpolation In ExcelIn Excel, linear interpolation refers to forecasting or guessing the next value of any given variable based on current data. To execute a linear interpolation in Excel, we use the forecast function and the lookup function to create a straight line that connects two values and estimates the future value through it.read more takes the same data to excel.

Now we need to find the growth inches for the 5th day, so x = 5.

Set 1 (x1, y1)

Set 2 (x2, y2)

So x1 = 4, y1 = 2, x2 = 8, and y2 = 4.

Enter these values in excel sheet cells.

We have mentioned question marks for x1, y1, x2, and y2. Because with this simple data, we can easily find it by just seeing them. But it is always a good practice to find these values through the formula. For example, apply the formula below to find the “x1” value.

Now to find the “y1” value apply the below formula.

To find the “x2” value apply the below formula.

To find the “y2” value apply the below formula.

We can find the values for all the Interpolation parameters in the Excel formula.

Next, to find the 5th-day paddy growth inches apply the below formula.

So, as we have calculated manually with the formula, also we got 2.5 as the answer. If needed, we can insert the line graphLine GraphLine Graphs/Charts in Excels are visuals to track trends or show changes over a given period & they are pretty helpful for forecasting data. They may include 1 line for a single data set or multiple lines to compare different data sets. read more for the data.

Things to Remember Here

Interpolation is the process of finding the middle value of the existing data.There is no built-in formula in excel to calculate the Excel interpolation value.In the MATCH functionMATCH FunctionThe MATCH function looks for a specific value and returns its relative position in a given range of cells. The output is the first position found for the given value. Being a lookup and reference function, it works for both an exact and approximate match. For example, if the range A11:A15 consists of the numbers 2, 9, 8, 14, 32, the formula “MATCH(8,A11:A15,0)” returns 3. This is because the number 8 is at the third position.
read more, we must use “1” for the parameter “match type,” which helps users find the value greater than the lookup value.