Question

What should I already know before attempting to learn about splines?

Answer 1

splines are simply polynomials used for interpolation purposes, so you should be ready to manipulate polynomials usually, if I remember correctly, linear, quadratic and cubic. Also, you will be finding first and second derivatives of the polynomials. sorry, its been too long!

Answer 2

you will also probably end up doing some programming; much of the math is very tedious, and all the modern applications are using splines to fit complex curves like cinema cgi