Evaluating the boundary and covering degree of planar Minkowski sums and other geometrical convolutions

AbstractAlgorithms are developed, based on topological principles, to evaluate the boundary and “internal structure” of the Minkowski sum of two planar curves. A graph isotopic to the envelope curve is constructed by computing its characteristic points. The edges of this graph are in one-to-one correspondence with a set of monotone envelope segments. A simple formula allows a degree to be assigned to each face defined by the graph, indicating the number of times its points are covered by the Minkowski sum. The boundary can then be identified with the set of edges that separate faces of zero and non-zero degree, and the boundary segments corresponding to these edges can be approximated to any desired geometrical accuracy. For applications that require only the Minkowski sum boundary, the algorithm minimizes geometrical computations on the “internal” envelope edges, that do not contribute to the final boundary. In other applications, this internal structure is of interest, and the algorithm provides comprehensive information on the covering degree for different regions within the Minkowski sum. Extensions of the algorithm to the computation of Minkowski sums in R3, and other forms of geometrical convolution, are briefly discussed

On the isotopic meshing of an algebraic implicit surface

International audienceWe present a new and complete algorithm for computing the topology of an algebraic surface given by a squarefree polynomial in Q[X, Y, Z]. Our algorithm involves only subresultant computations and entirely relies on rational manipulation, which makes it direct to implement. We extend the work in [15], on the topology of non-reduced algebraic space curves, and apply it to the polar curve or apparent contour of the surface S. We exploit simple algebraic criterion to certify the pseudo-genericity and genericity position of the surface. This gives us rational parametrizations of the components of the polar curve, which are used to lift the topology of the projection of the polar curve. We deduce the connection of the two-dimensional components above the cell defined by the projection of the polar curve. A complexity analysis of the algorithm is provided leading to a bound in OB (d15 τ ) for the complexity of the computation of the topology of an implicit algebraic surface defined by integer coefficients polynomial of degree d and coefficients size τ . Examples illustrate the implementation in Mathemagix of this first complete code for certified topology of algebraic surfaces