Octants are cover-decomposable into many coverings

We prove that octants are cover-decomposable into multiple coverings, i.e., for any k there is an m(k)m(k) such that any m(k)m(k)-fold covering of any subset of the space with a finite number of translates of a given octant can be decomposed into k coverings. As a corollary, we obtain that any m(k)m(k)-fold covering of any subset of the plane with a finite number of homothetic copies of a given triangle can be decomposed into k coverings. Previously only some weaker bounds were known for related problems [20]

Making Octants Colorful and Related Covering Decomposition Problems

We give new positive results on the long-standing open problem of geometric covering decomposition for homothetic polygons. In particular, we prove that for any positive integer k, every finite set of points in R^3 can be colored with k colors so that every translate of the negative octant containing at least k^6 points contains at least one of each color. The best previously known bound was doubly exponential in k. This yields, among other corollaries, the first polynomial bound for the decomposability of multiple coverings by homothetic triangles. We also investigate related decomposition problems involving intervals appearing on a line. We prove that no algorithm can dynamically maintain a decomposition of a multiple covering by intervals under insertion of new intervals, even in a semi-online model, in which some coloring decisions can be delayed. This implies that a wide range of sweeping plane algorithms cannot guarantee any bound even for special cases of the octant problem.Comment: version after revision process; minor changes in the expositio

Making Triangles Colorful

We prove that for any point set P in the plane, a triangle T, and a positive integer k, there exists a coloring of P with k colors such that any homothetic copy of T containing at least ck^8 points of P, for some constant c, contains at least one of each color. This is the first polynomial bound for range spaces induced by homothetic polygons. The only previously known bound for this problem applies to the more general case of octants in R^3, but is doubly exponential.Comment: 6 page

Coloring Hypergraphs Induced by Dynamic Point Sets and Bottomless Rectangles

We consider a coloring problem on dynamic, one-dimensional point sets: points appearing and disappearing on a line at given times. We wish to color them with k colors so that at any time, any sequence of p(k) consecutive points, for some function p, contains at least one point of each color. We prove that no such function p(k) exists in general. However, in the restricted case in which points appear gradually, but never disappear, we give a coloring algorithm guaranteeing the property at any time with p(k)=3k-2. This can be interpreted as coloring point sets in R^2 with k colors such that any bottomless rectangle containing at least 3k-2 points contains at least one point of each color. Here a bottomless rectangle is an axis-aligned rectangle whose bottom edge is below the lowest point of the set. For this problem, we also prove a lower bound p(k)>ck, where c>1.67. Hence for every k there exists a point set, every k-coloring of which is such that there exists a bottomless rectangle containing ck points and missing at least one of the k colors. Chen et al. (2009) proved that no such function $p(k)$ exists in the case of general axis-aligned rectangles. Our result also complements recent results from Keszegh and Palvolgyi on cover-decomposability of octants (2011, 2012).Comment: A preliminary version was presented by a subset of the authors to the European Workshop on Computational Geometry, held in Assisi (Italy) on March 19-21, 201

More on Decomposing Coverings by Octants

In this note we improve our upper bound given earlier by showing that every 9-fold covering of a point set in the space by finitely many translates of an octant decomposes into two coverings, and our lower bound by a construction for a 4-fold covering that does not decompose into two coverings. The same bounds also hold for coverings of points in $\R^2$ by finitely many homothets or translates of a triangle. We also prove that certain dynamic interval coloring problems are equivalent to the above question

Convex Polygons are Self-Coverable

We introduce a new notion for geometric families called self-coverability and show that homothets of convex polygons are self-coverable. As a corollary, we obtain several results about coloring point sets such that any member of the family with many points contains all colors. This is dual (and in some cases equivalent) to the much investigated cover-decomposability problem

Coloring Points with Respect to Squares

We consider the problem of 2-coloring geometric hypergraphs. Specifically, we show that there is a constant m such that any finite set S of points in the plane can be 2-colored such that every axis-parallel square that contains at least m points from S contains points of both colors. Our proof is constructive, that is, it provides a polynomial-time algorithm for obtaining such a 2-coloring. By affine transformations this result immediately applies also when considering homothets of a fixed parallelogram

Coloring Points with Respect to Squares

We consider the problem of 2-coloring geometric hypergraphs. Specifically, we show that there is a constant m such that any finite set of points in the plane (Formula presented.) can be 2-colored such that every axis-parallel square that contains at least m points from (Formula presented.) contains points of both colors. Our proof is constructive, that is, it provides a polynomial-time algorithm for obtaining such a 2-coloring. By affine transformations this result immediately applies also when considering 2-coloring points with respect to homothets of a fixed parallelogram