846 research outputs found
Kinetic and Dynamic Delaunay tetrahedralizations in three dimensions
We describe the implementation of algorithms to construct and maintain
three-dimensional dynamic Delaunay triangulations with kinetic vertices using a
three-simplex data structure. The code is capable of constructing the geometric
dual, the Voronoi or Dirichlet tessellation. Initially, a given list of points
is triangulated. Time evolution of the triangulation is not only governed by
kinetic vertices but also by a changing number of vertices. We use
three-dimensional simplex flip algorithms, a stochastic visibility walk
algorithm for point location and in addition, we propose a new simple method of
deleting vertices from an existing three-dimensional Delaunay triangulation
while maintaining the Delaunay property. The dual Dirichlet tessellation can be
used to solve differential equations on an irregular grid, to define partitions
in cell tissue simulations, for collision detection etc.Comment: 29 pg (preprint), 12 figures, 1 table Title changed (mainly
nomenclature), referee suggestions included, typos corrected, bibliography
update
Minkowski Tensors of Anisotropic Spatial Structure
This article describes the theoretical foundation of and explicit algorithms
for a novel approach to morphology and anisotropy analysis of complex spatial
structure using tensor-valued Minkowski functionals, the so-called Minkowski
tensors. Minkowski tensors are generalisations of the well-known scalar
Minkowski functionals and are explicitly sensitive to anisotropic aspects of
morphology, relevant for example for elastic moduli or permeability of
microstructured materials. Here we derive explicit linear-time algorithms to
compute these tensorial measures for three-dimensional shapes. These apply to
representations of any object that can be represented by a triangulation of its
bounding surface; their application is illustrated for the polyhedral Voronoi
cellular complexes of jammed sphere configurations, and for triangulations of a
biopolymer fibre network obtained by confocal microscopy. The article further
bridges the substantial notational and conceptual gap between the different but
equivalent approaches to scalar or tensorial Minkowski functionals in
mathematics and in physics, hence making the mathematical measure theoretic
method more readily accessible for future application in the physical sciences
Alpha, Betti and the Megaparsec Universe: on the Topology of the Cosmic Web
We study the topology of the Megaparsec Cosmic Web in terms of the
scale-dependent Betti numbers, which formalize the topological information
content of the cosmic mass distribution. While the Betti numbers do not fully
quantify topology, they extend the information beyond conventional cosmological
studies of topology in terms of genus and Euler characteristic. The richer
information content of Betti numbers goes along the availability of fast
algorithms to compute them.
For continuous density fields, we determine the scale-dependence of Betti
numbers by invoking the cosmologically familiar filtration of sublevel or
superlevel sets defined by density thresholds. For the discrete galaxy
distribution, however, the analysis is based on the alpha shapes of the
particles. These simplicial complexes constitute an ordered sequence of nested
subsets of the Delaunay tessellation, a filtration defined by the scale
parameter, . As they are homotopy equivalent to the sublevel sets of
the distance field, they are an excellent tool for assessing the topological
structure of a discrete point distribution. In order to develop an intuitive
understanding for the behavior of Betti numbers as a function of , and
their relation to the morphological patterns in the Cosmic Web, we first study
them within the context of simple heuristic Voronoi clustering models.
Subsequently, we address the topology of structures emerging in the standard
LCDM scenario and in cosmological scenarios with alternative dark energy
content. The evolution and scale-dependence of the Betti numbers is shown to
reflect the hierarchical evolution of the Cosmic Web and yields a promising
measure of cosmological parameters. We also discuss the expected Betti numbers
as a function of the density threshold for superlevel sets of a Gaussian random
field.Comment: 42 pages, 14 figure
Three-dimensional alpha shapes
Frequently, data in scientific computing is in its abstract form a finite
point set in space, and it is sometimes useful or required to compute what one
might call the ``shape'' of the set. For that purpose, this paper introduces
the formal notion of the family of -shapes of a finite point set in
\Real^3. Each shape is a well-defined polytope, derived from the Delaunay
triangulation of the point set, with a parameter \alpha \in \Real controlling
the desired level of detail. An algorithm is presented that constructs the
entire family of shapes for a given set of size in time , worst
case. A robust implementation of the algorithm is discussed and several
applications in the area of scientific computing are mentioned.Comment: 32 page
- …