Cell-average projection ($U_m=h^{-1}{\int }_{x_m-h/2}^{x_m+h/2}u(x)dx$)

The cell-average projection replaces a function by its average on each grid cell. It is independent of the representative of an L2 function, unlike point sampling. The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives $h|U_m{|}^2\le {\int }_{\text{cell }m}|u{|}^{2}dx$, hence $h{\sum }_m|U_m{|}^2\le \Vert u{\Vert }_{L^2}^2$. Viewed as a piecewise constant function, the projection is the orthogonal projection onto the grid's piecewise constant linear subspace. Density of continuous compactly supported functions and the contraction estimate give convergence in the L2 norm as the mesh tends to zero.