36,674 research outputs found
Computing the Volume of a Union of Balls: a Certified Algorithm
Balls and spheres are amongst the simplest 3D modeling primitives, and computing the volume of a union of balls is an elementary problem. Although a number of strategies addressing this problem have been investigated in several communities, we are not aware of any robust algorithm, and present the first such algorithm. Our calculation relies on the decomposition of the volume of the union into convex regions, namely the restrictions of the balls to their regions in the power diagram. Theoretically, we establish a formula for the volume of a restriction, based on Gauss' divergence theorem. The proof being constructive, we develop the associated algorithm. On the implementation side, we carefully analyse the predicates and constructions involved in the volume calculation, and present a certified implementation relying on interval arithmetic. The result is certified in the sense that the exact volume belongs to the interval computed using the interval arithmetic. Experimental results are presented on hand-crafted models presenting various difficulties, as well as on the 58,898 models found in the 2009-07-10 release of the Protein Data Bank
Maximization of Laplace-Beltrami eigenvalues on closed Riemannian surfaces
Let be a connected, closed, orientable Riemannian surface and denote
by the -th eigenvalue of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on
. In this paper, we consider the mapping .
We propose a computational method for finding the conformal spectrum
, which is defined by the eigenvalue optimization problem
of maximizing for fixed as varies within a conformal
class of fixed volume . We also propose a
computational method for the problem where is additionally allowed to vary
over surfaces with fixed genus, . This is known as the topological
spectrum for genus and denoted by . Our
computations support a conjecture of N. Nadirashvili (2002) that
, attained by a sequence of surfaces degenerating to
a union of identical round spheres. Furthermore, based on our computations,
we conjecture that ,
attained by a sequence of surfaces degenerating into a union of an equilateral
flat torus and identical round spheres. The values are compared to
several surfaces where the Laplace-Beltrami eigenvalues are well-known,
including spheres, flat tori, and embedded tori. In particular, we show that
among flat tori of volume one, the -th Laplace-Beltrami eigenvalue has a
local maximum with value . Several properties are also studied
computationally, including uniqueness, symmetry, and eigenvalue multiplicity.Comment: 43 pages, 18 figure
Birthday Inequalities, Repulsion, and Hard Spheres
We study a birthday inequality in random geometric graphs: the probability of
the empty graph is upper bounded by the product of the probabilities that each
edge is absent. We show the birthday inequality holds at low densities, but
does not hold in general. We give three different applications of the birthday
inequality in statistical physics and combinatorics: we prove lower bounds on
the free energy of the hard sphere model and upper bounds on the number of
independent sets and matchings of a given size in d-regular graphs.
The birthday inequality is implied by a repulsion inequality: the expected
volume of the union of spheres of radius r around n randomly placed centers
increases if we condition on the event that the centers are at pairwise
distance greater than r. Surprisingly we show that the repulsion inequality is
not true in general, and in particular that it fails in 24-dimensional
Euclidean space: conditioning on the pairwise repulsion of centers of
24-dimensional spheres can decrease the expected volume of their union
Computation of protein geometry and its applications: Packing and function prediction
This chapter discusses geometric models of biomolecules and geometric
constructs, including the union of ball model, the weigthed Voronoi diagram,
the weighted Delaunay triangulation, and the alpha shapes. These geometric
constructs enable fast and analytical computaton of shapes of biomoleculres
(including features such as voids and pockets) and metric properties (such as
area and volume). The algorithms of Delaunay triangulation, computation of
voids and pockets, as well volume/area computation are also described. In
addition, applications in packing analysis of protein structures and protein
function prediction are also discussed.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figure
Convex hulls of spheres and convex hulls of convex polytopes lying on parallel hyperplanes
Given a set of spheres in , with and
odd, having a fixed number of distinct radii , we
show that the worst-case combinatorial complexity of the convex hull
of is
, where
is the number of spheres in with radius .
To prove the lower bound, we construct a set of spheres in
, with odd, where spheres have radius ,
, and , such that their convex hull has combinatorial
complexity
.
Our construction is then generalized to the case where the spheres have
distinct radii.
For the upper bound, we reduce the sphere convex hull problem to the problem
of computing the worst-case combinatorial complexity of the convex hull of a
set of -dimensional convex polytopes lying on parallel hyperplanes
in , where odd, a problem which is of independent
interest. More precisely, we show that the worst-case combinatorial complexity
of the convex hull of a set
of -dimensional convex polytopes lying on parallel hyperplanes of
is
, where
is the number of vertices of .
We end with algorithmic considerations, and we show how our tight bounds for
the parallel polytope convex hull problem, yield tight bounds on the
combinatorial complexity of the Minkowski sum of two convex polytopes in
.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, new proof of upper bound for the complexity of
the convex hull of parallel polytopes (the new proof gives upper bounds for
all face numbers of the convex hull of the parallel polytopes
Surface-Surface-Intersection Computation using a Bounding Volume Hierarchy with Osculating Toroidal Patches in the Leaf Nodes
We present an efficient and robust algorithm for computing the intersection curve of two freeform surfaces using a Bounding Volume
Hierarchy (BVH), where the leaf nodes contain osculating toroidal patches. The covering of each surface by a union of tightly fitting
toroidal patches greatly simplifies the geometric operations involved in the surface-surface-intersection computation, i.e., the bounding
of surface normals, the detection of surface binormals, the point projection from one surface to the other surface, and the intersection
of local surface patches. Moreover, the hierarchy of simple bounding volumes (such as rectangle-swept spheres) accelerates the
geometric search for the potential pairs of surface patches that may generate some curve segments in the surface-surface-intersection.
We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by using test examples of intersecting two freeform surfaces, including some highly
non-trivial examples with tangential intersections. In particular, we test the intersection of two almost identical surfaces, where one
surface is obtained from the same surface, using a rotation around a normal line by a smaller and smaller angle θ = 10−k degree,
k = 0, · · · , 5. The intersection results are often given as surface subpatches in some highly tangential areas, and even as the whole
surface itself, when θ = 0.00001◦
Sphere Packing with Limited Overlap
The classical sphere packing problem asks for the best (infinite) arrangement
of non-overlapping unit balls which cover as much space as possible. We define
a generalized version of the problem, where we allow each ball a limited amount
of overlap with other balls. We study two natural choices of overlap measures
and obtain the optimal lattice packings in a parameterized family of lattices
which contains the FCC, BCC, and integer lattice.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, submitted to SOCG 201
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