Sparse implicitization by interpolation: Characterizing non-exactness and an application to computing discriminants

We revisit implicitization by interpolation in order to examine its properties in the context of sparse elimination theory. Based on the computation of a superset of the implicit support, implicitization is reduced to computing the nullspace of a numeric matrix. The approach is applicable to polynomial and rational parameterizations of curves and (hyper)surfaces of any dimension, including the case of parameterizations with base points. Our support prediction is based on sparse (or toric) resultant theory, in order to exploit the sparsity of the input and the output. Our method may yield a multiple of the implicit equation: we characterize and quantify this situation by relating the nullspace dimension to the predicted support and its geometry. In this case, we obtain more than one multiples of the implicit equation; the latter can be obtained via multivariate polynomial gcd (or factoring). All of the above techniques extend to the case of approximate computation, thus yielding a method of sparse approximate implicitization, which is important in tackling larger problems. We discuss our publicly available Maple implementation through several examples, including the benchmark of bicubic surface. For a novel application, we focus on computing the discriminant of a multivariate polynomial, which characterizes the existence of multiple roots and generalizes the resultant of a polynomial system. This yields an efficient, output-sensitive algorithm for computing the discriminant polynomial

Implicitization of curves and (hyper)surfaces using predicted support

We reduce implicitization of rational planar parametric curves and (hyper)surfaces to linear algebra, by interpolating the coefficients of the implicit equation. For predicting the implicit support, we focus on methods that exploit input and output structure in the sense of sparse (or toric) elimination theory, namely by computing the Newton polytope of the implicit polynomial, via sparse resultant theory. Our algorithm works even in the presence of base points but, in this case, the implicit equation shall be obtained as a factor of the produced polynomial. We implement our methods on Maple, and some on Matlab as well, and study their numerical stability and efficiency on several classes of curves and surfaces. We apply our approach to approximate implicitization, and quantify the accuracy of the approximate output, which turns out to be satisfactory on all tested examples; we also relate our measures to Hausdorff distance. In building a square or rectangular matrix, an important issue is (over)sampling the given curve or surface: we conclude that unitary complexes offer the best tradeoff between speed and accuracy when numerical methods are employed, namely SVD, whereas for exact kernel computation random integers is the method of choice. We compare our prototype to existing software and find that it is rather competitive

Sparse implicitization by interpolation: Geometric computations using matrix representations

Based on the computation of a superset of the implicit support, implicitization of a parametrically given hyper-surface is reduced to computing the nullspace of a numeric matrix. Our approach exploits the sparseness of the given parametric equations and of the implicit polynomial. In this work, we study how this interpolation matrix can be used to reduce some key geometric predicates on the hyper-surface to simple numerical operations on the matrix, namely membership and sidedness for given query points. We illustrate our results with examples based on our Maple implementation

Matrix representations for toric parametrizations

In this paper we show that a surface in P^3 parametrized over a 2-dimensional toric variety T can be represented by a matrix of linear syzygies if the base points are finite in number and form locally a complete intersection. This constitutes a direct generalization of the corresponding result over P^2 established in [BJ03] and [BC05]. Exploiting the sparse structure of the parametrization, we obtain significantly smaller matrices than in the homogeneous case and the method becomes applicable to parametrizations for which it previously failed. We also treat the important case T = P^1 x P^1 in detail and give numerous examples.Comment: 20 page

The Newton Polytope of the Implicit Equation

We apply tropical geometry to study the image of a map defined by Laurent polynomials with generic coefficients. If this image is a hypersurface then our approach gives a construction of its Newton polytope.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

Mini-Workshop: Surface Modeling and Syzygies

The problem of determining the implicit equation of the image of a rational map φ : P2 99K P3 is of theoretical interest in algebraic geometry, and of practical importance in geometric modeling. There are essentially three methods which can be applied to the problem: Gröbner bases, resultants, and syzygies. Elimination via Gröbner basis methods tends to be computationally intensive and, being a general tool, is not adapted to the geometry of specific problems. Thus, it is primarily the latter two techniques which are used in practice. This is an extremely active area of research where many different perspectives come into play. The mini-workshop brought together a diverse group of researchers with different areas of expertise