478 research outputs found
Flip Distance Between Triangulations of a Planar Point Set is APX-Hard
In this work we consider triangulations of point sets in the Euclidean plane,
i.e., maximal straight-line crossing-free graphs on a finite set of points.
Given a triangulation of a point set, an edge flip is the operation of removing
one edge and adding another one, such that the resulting graph is again a
triangulation. Flips are a major way of locally transforming triangular meshes.
We show that, given a point set in the Euclidean plane and two
triangulations and of , it is an APX-hard problem to minimize
the number of edge flips to transform to .Comment: A previous version only showed NP-completeness of the corresponding
decision problem. The current version is the one of the accepted manuscrip
Convex Hull of Points Lying on Lines in o(n log n) Time after Preprocessing
Motivated by the desire to cope with data imprecision, we study methods for
taking advantage of preliminary information about point sets in order to speed
up the computation of certain structures associated with them.
In particular, we study the following problem: given a set L of n lines in
the plane, we wish to preprocess L such that later, upon receiving a set P of n
points, each of which lies on a distinct line of L, we can construct the convex
hull of P efficiently. We show that in quadratic time and space it is possible
to construct a data structure on L that enables us to compute the convex hull
of any such point set P in O(n alpha(n) log* n) expected time. If we further
assume that the points are "oblivious" with respect to the data structure, the
running time improves to O(n alpha(n)). The analysis applies almost verbatim
when L is a set of line-segments, and yields similar asymptotic bounds. We
present several extensions, including a trade-off between space and query time
and an output-sensitive algorithm. We also study the "dual problem" where we
show how to efficiently compute the (<= k)-level of n lines in the plane, each
of which lies on a distinct point (given in advance).
We complement our results by Omega(n log n) lower bounds under the algebraic
computation tree model for several related problems, including sorting a set of
points (according to, say, their x-order), each of which lies on a given line
known in advance. Therefore, the convex hull problem under our setting is
easier than sorting, contrary to the "standard" convex hull and sorting
problems, in which the two problems require Theta(n log n) steps in the worst
case (under the algebraic computation tree model).Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 1 appendix; a preliminary version appeared at
SoCG 201
Squarepants in a Tree: Sum of Subtree Clustering and Hyperbolic Pants Decomposition
We provide efficient constant factor approximation algorithms for the
problems of finding a hierarchical clustering of a point set in any metric
space, minimizing the sum of minimimum spanning tree lengths within each
cluster, and in the hyperbolic or Euclidean planes, minimizing the sum of
cluster perimeters. Our algorithms for the hyperbolic and Euclidean planes can
also be used to provide a pants decomposition, that is, a set of disjoint
simple closed curves partitioning the plane minus the input points into subsets
with exactly three boundary components, with approximately minimum total
length. In the Euclidean case, these curves are squares; in the hyperbolic
case, they combine our Euclidean square pants decomposition with our tree
clustering method for general metric spaces.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures. This version replaces the proof of what is now
Lemma 5.2, as the previous proof was erroneou
Dense point sets have sparse Delaunay triangulations
The spread of a finite set of points is the ratio between the longest and
shortest pairwise distances. We prove that the Delaunay triangulation of any
set of n points in R^3 with spread D has complexity O(D^3). This bound is tight
in the worst case for all D = O(sqrt{n}). In particular, the Delaunay
triangulation of any dense point set has linear complexity. We also generalize
this upper bound to regular triangulations of k-ply systems of balls, unions of
several dense point sets, and uniform samples of smooth surfaces. On the other
hand, for any n and D=O(n), we construct a regular triangulation of complexity
Omega(nD) whose n vertices have spread D.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures. Full version of SODA 2002 paper. Also available
at http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/~jeffe/pubs/screw.htm
Happy endings for flip graphs
We show that the triangulations of a finite point set form a flip graph that
can be embedded isometrically into a hypercube, if and only if the point set
has no empty convex pentagon. Point sets of this type include convex subsets of
lattices, points on two lines, and several other infinite families. As a
consequence, flip distance in such point sets can be computed efficiently.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures. Revised and expanded for journal publicatio
Towards compatible triangulations
AbstractWe state the following conjecture: any two planar n-point sets that agree on the number of convex hull points can be triangulated in a compatible manner, i.e., such that the resulting two triangulations are topologically equivalent. We first describe a class of point sets which can be triangulated compatibly with any other set (that satisfies the obvious size and shape restrictions). The conjecture is then proved true for point sets with at most three interior points. Finally, we demonstrate that adding a small number of extraneous points (the number of interior points minus three) always allows for compatible triangulations. The linear bound extends to point sets of arbitrary size and shape
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