Changing Views on Curves and Surfaces

Visual events in computer vision are studied from the perspective of algebraic geometry. Given a sufficiently general curve or surface in 3-space, we consider the image or contour curve that arises by projecting from a viewpoint. Qualitative changes in that curve occur when the viewpoint crosses the visual event surface. We examine the components of this ruled surface, and observe that these coincide with the iterated singular loci of the coisotropic hypersurfaces associated with the original curve or surface. We derive formulas, due to Salmon and Petitjean, for the degrees of these surfaces, and show how to compute exact representations for all visual event surfaces using algebraic methods.Comment: 31 page

A characterisation of generically rigid frameworks on surfaces of revolution

A foundational theorem of Laman provides a counting characterisation of the finite simple graphs whose generic bar-joint frameworks in two dimensions are infinitesimally rigid. Recently a Laman-type characterisation was obtained for frameworks in three dimensions whose vertices are constrained to concentric spheres or to concentric cylinders. Noting that the plane and the sphere have 3 independent locally tangential infinitesimal motions while the cylinder has 2, we obtain here a Laman-Henneberg theorem for frameworks on algebraic surfaces with a 1-dimensional space of tangential motions. Such surfaces include the torus, helicoids and surfaces of revolution. The relevant class of graphs are the (2,1)-tight graphs, in contrast to (2,3)-tightness for the plane/sphere and (2,2)-tightness for the cylinder. The proof uses a new characterisation of simple (2,1)-tight graphs and an inductive construction requiring generic rigidity preservation for 5 graph moves, including the two Henneberg moves, an edge joining move and various vertex surgery moves.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures. Minor revisions - most importantly, the new version has a different titl

Surface embedding, topology and dualization for spin networks

Spin networks are graphs derived from 3nj symbols of angular momentum. The surface embedding, the topology and dualization of these networks are considered. Embeddings into compact surfaces include the orientable sphere S^2 and the torus T, and the not orientable projective space P^2 and Klein's bottle K. Two families of 3nj graphs admit embeddings of minimal genus into S^2 and P^2. Their dual 2-skeletons are shown to be triangulations of these surfaces.Comment: LaTeX 17 pages, 6 eps figures (late submission to arxiv.org

Reidemeister/Roseman-type Moves to Embedded Foams in 4-dimensional Space

The dual to a tetrahedron consists of a single vertex at which four edges and six faces are incident. Along each edge, three faces converge. A 2-foam is a compact topological space such that each point has a neighborhood homeomorphic to a neighborhood of that complex. Knotted foams in 4-dimensional space are to knotted surfaces, as knotted trivalent graphs are to classical knots. The diagram of a knotted foam consists of a generic projection into 4-space with crossing information indicated via a broken surface. In this paper, a finite set of moves to foams are presented that are analogous to the Reidemeister-type moves for knotted graphs. These moves include the Roseman moves for knotted surfaces. Given a pair of diagrams of isotopic knotted foams there is a finite sequence of moves taken from this set that, when applied to one diagram sequentially, produces the other diagram.Comment: 18 pages, 29 figures, Be aware: the figure on page 3 takes some time to load. A higher resolution version is found at http://www.southalabama.edu/mathstat/personal_pages/carter/Moves2Foams.pdf . If you want to use to any drawings, please contact m

Edge contraction on dual ribbon graphs and 2D TQFT

We present a new set of axioms for 2D TQFT formulated on the category of cell graphs with edge-contraction operations as morphisms. We construct a functor from this category to the endofunctor category consisting of Frobenius algebras. Edge-contraction operations correspond to natural transformations of endofunctors, which are compatible with the Frobenius algebra structure. Given a Frobenius algebra A, every cell graph determines an element of the symmetric tensor algebra defined over the dual space A*. We show that the edge-contraction axioms make this assignment depending only on the topological type of the cell graph, but not on the graph itself. Thus the functor generates the TQFT corresponding to A.Comment: accepted in Journal of Algebra (22 pages, 13 figures