Universality theorems for inscribed polytopes and Delaunay triangulations

We prove that every primary basic semialgebraic set is homotopy equivalent to the set of inscribed realizations (up to M\"obius transformation) of a polytope. If the semialgebraic set is moreover open, then, in addition, we prove that (up to homotopy) it is a retract of the realization space of some inscribed neighborly (and simplicial) polytope. We also show that all algebraic extensions of $\mathbb{Q}$ are needed to coordinatize inscribed polytopes. These statements show that inscribed polytopes exhibit the Mn\"ev universality phenomenon. Via stereographic projections, these theorems have a direct translation to universality theorems for Delaunay subdivisions. In particular, our results imply that the realizability problem for Delaunay triangulations is polynomially equivalent to the existential theory of the reals.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Witness (Delaunay) Graphs

Proximity graphs are used in several areas in which a neighborliness relationship for input data sets is a useful tool in their analysis, and have also received substantial attention from the graph drawing community, as they are a natural way of implicitly representing graphs. However, as a tool for graph representation, proximity graphs have some limitations that may be overcome with suitable generalizations. We introduce a generalization, witness graphs, that encompasses both the goal of more power and flexibility for graph drawing issues and a wider spectrum for neighborhood analysis. We study in detail two concrete examples, both related to Delaunay graphs, and consider as well some problems on stabbing geometric objects and point set discrimination, that can be naturally described in terms of witness graphs.Comment: 27 pages. JCCGG 200

There are 174 Subdivisions of the Hexahedron into Tetrahedra

This article answers an important theoretical question: How many different subdivisions of the hexahedron into tetrahedra are there? It is well known that the cube has five subdivisions into 6 tetrahedra and one subdivision into 5 tetrahedra. However, all hexahedra are not cubes and moving the vertex positions increases the number of subdivisions. Recent hexahedral dominant meshing methods try to take these configurations into account for combining tetrahedra into hexahedra, but fail to enumerate them all: they use only a set of 10 subdivisions among the 174 we found in this article. The enumeration of these 174 subdivisions of the hexahedron into tetrahedra is our combinatorial result. Each of the 174 subdivisions has between 5 and 15 tetrahedra and is actually a class of 2 to 48 equivalent instances which are identical up to vertex relabeling. We further show that exactly 171 of these subdivisions have a geometrical realization, i.e. there exist coordinates of the eight hexahedron vertices in a three-dimensional space such that the geometrical tetrahedral mesh is valid. We exhibit the tetrahedral meshes for these configurations and show in particular subdivisions of hexahedra with 15 tetrahedra that have a strictly positive Jacobian

A Finite Algorithm for the Realizabilty of a Delaunay Triangulation

The \emph{Delaunay graph} of a point set $P \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$ is the plane graph with the vertex-set $P$ and the edge-set that contains $\{p,p'\}$ if there exists a disc whose intersection with $P$ is exactly $\{p,p'\}$. Accordingly, a triangulated graph $G$ is \emph{Delaunay realizable} if there exists a triangulation of the Delaunay graph of some $P \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$, called a \emph{Delaunay triangulation} of $P$, that is isomorphic to $G$. The objective of \textsc{Delaunay Realization} is to compute a point set $P \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$ that realizes a given graph $G$ (if such a $P$ exists). Known algorithms do not solve \textsc{Delaunay Realization} as they are non-constructive. Obtaining a constructive algorithm for \textsc{Delaunay Realization} was mentioned as an open problem by Hiroshima et al.~\cite{hiroshima2000}. We design an $n^{\mathcal{O}(n)}$-time constructive algorithm for \textsc{Delaunay Realization}. In fact, our algorithm outputs sets of points with {\em integer} coordinates

Six topics on inscribable polytopes

Inscribability of polytopes is a classic subject but also a lively research area nowadays. We illustrate this with a selection of well-known results and recent developments on six particular topics related to inscribable polytopes. Along the way we collect a list of (new and old) open questions.Comment: 11 page