In 1d case, D is used to do polynomial trend filtering of order k, and
generated by $$D_{tf,k} = D1d * D_{tf,k-1} for k >= 2,$$ where the nozero
elements in each row is (1,-2,1)
in D_tf,1 and (-1,1)
in D_1d.
This is usually not necessary to call directly, as AMIAS
internally
gennerate D, but inspection of the matrix can sometimes be useful.