683 research outputs found
Star Unfolding from a Geodesic Curve
There are two known ways to unfold a convex polyhedron without overlap: the star unfolding and the source unfolding, both of which use shortest paths from vertices to a source point on the surface of the polyhedron. Non-overlap of the source unfolding is straightforward; non-overlap of the star unfolding was proved by Aronov and O\u27Rourke in 1992. Our first contribution is a much simpler proof of non-overlap of the star unfolding.
Both the source and star unfolding can be generalized to use a simple geodesic curve instead of a source point. The star unfolding from a geodesic curve cuts the geodesic curve and a shortest path from each vertex to the geodesic curve. Demaine and Lubiw conjectured that the star unfolding from a geodesic curve does not overlap. We prove a special case of the conjecture. Our special case includes the previously known case of unfolding from a geodesic loop. For the general case we prove that the star unfolding from a geodesic curve can be separated into at most two non-overlapping pieces
The Star Unfolding from a Geodesic Curve
An unfolding of a polyhedron P is obtained by `cutting' the surface of P in such a way that it can be flattened into the plane into a single polygon. For most practical and theoretic applications, it is desirable for an algorithm to produce an unfolding which is simple, that is, non-overlapping. Currently, two methods for unfolding which guarantee non-overlap for convex polyhedra are known, the source unfolding, and the star}unfolding. Both methods involve computing shortest paths from a single source point on the polyhedron's surface.
In this thesis, we attempt to prove non-overlap of a variant called the geodesic star unfolding. This unfolding, much like the star unfolding, is computed by cutting shortest paths from each vertex to λ, a geodesic curve on the surface of a convex polyhedron P, and also cutting λ itself. Non-overlap of this case was conjectured by Demaine and Lubiw (2011). We are unsuccessful in completely proving non-overlap, though we present a number of partial results, and discuss some areas for future study. We first develop a new proof for non-overlap of the star unfolding from a point. The original proof of non-overlap was given by Aronov and O'Rourke (2009). This new proof uses a partitioning of the unfolding around the ridge tree. Each edge of the ridge tree serves as a base edge to a pair of congruent triangles; in this way, the whole unfolding is decomposed into these pairs which are called kites. We prove non-overlap by showing that pairwise, no two kites in the unfolding overlap each other, by a method which bounds the surface angle of the source images to either side of any path through the ridge tree.
In addition to its simplicity compared to the previous proof, this new method easily generalizes to prove non-overlap for some cases of the star unfolding from geodesic curves. Specifically, we show non-overlap for two classes of geodesic curves, geodesic loops, and fully-extended S-shaped geodesics, by showing that the surface angle of the source images in those two cases are bounded. We also investigate a class of curves called fully-extended C-shaped geodesics for which the proof cannot hold directly. We show some specific cases where we are able to create a supplementary proof to show non-overlap, though non-overlap for the class as a whole remains unproven
Star Unfolding Convex Polyhedra via Quasigeodesic Loops
We extend the notion of star unfolding to be based on a quasigeodesic loop Q
rather than on a point. This gives a new general method to unfold the surface
of any convex polyhedron P to a simple (non-overlapping), planar polygon: cut
along one shortest path from each vertex of P to Q, and cut all but one segment
of Q.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. v2 improves the description of cut locus, and
adds references. v3 improves two figures and their captions. New version v4
offers a completely different proof of non-overlap in the quasigeodesic loop
case, and contains several other substantive improvements. This version is 23
pages long, with 15 figure
Conical Existence of Closed Curves on Convex Polyhedra
Let C be a simple, closed, directed curve on the surface of a convex
polyhedron P. We identify several classes of curves C that "live on a cone," in
the sense that C and a neighborhood to one side may be isometrically embedded
on the surface of a cone Lambda, with the apex a of Lambda enclosed inside (the
image of) C; we also prove that each point of C is "visible to" a. In
particular, we obtain that these curves have non-self-intersecting developments
in the plane. Moreover, the curves we identify that live on cones to both sides
support a new type of "source unfolding" of the entire surface of P to one
non-overlapping piece, as reported in a companion paper.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, 6 references. Version 2 includes a solution to
one of the open problems posed in Version 1, concerning quasigeodesic loop
Metric combinatorics of convex polyhedra: cut loci and nonoverlapping unfoldings
This paper is a study of the interaction between the combinatorics of
boundaries of convex polytopes in arbitrary dimension and their metric
geometry.
Let S be the boundary of a convex polytope of dimension d+1, or more
generally let S be a `convex polyhedral pseudomanifold'. We prove that S has a
polyhedral nonoverlapping unfolding into R^d, so the metric space S is obtained
from a closed (usually nonconvex) polyhedral ball in R^d by identifying pairs
of boundary faces isometrically. Our existence proof exploits geodesic flow
away from a source point v in S, which is the exponential map to S from the
tangent space at v. We characterize the `cut locus' (the closure of the set of
points in S with more than one shortest path to v) as a polyhedral complex in
terms of Voronoi diagrams on facets. Analyzing infinitesimal expansion of the
wavefront consisting of points at constant distance from v on S produces an
algorithmic method for constructing Voronoi diagrams in each facet, and hence
the unfolding of S. The algorithm, for which we provide pseudocode, solves the
discrete geodesic problem. Its main construction generalizes the source
unfolding for boundaries of 3-polytopes into R^2. We present conjectures
concerning the number of shortest paths on the boundaries of convex polyhedra,
and concerning continuous unfolding of convex polyhedra. We also comment on the
intrinsic non-polynomial complexity of nonconvex polyhedral manifolds.Comment: 47 pages; 21 PostScript (.eps) figures, most in colo
A Generalization of the Source Unfolding of Convex Polyhedra
We present a new method for unfolding a convex polyhedron into one piece without overlap, based on shortest paths to a convex curve on the polyhedron. Our “sun unfoldings” encompass source unfolding from a point, source unfolding from an open geodesic curve, and a variant of a recent method of Itoh, O’Rourke, and Vîlcu
How to Walk Your Dog in the Mountains with No Magic Leash
We describe a -approximation algorithm for computing the
homotopic \Frechet distance between two polygonal curves that lie on the
boundary of a triangulated topological disk. Prior to this work, algorithms
were known only for curves on the Euclidean plane with polygonal obstacles.
A key technical ingredient in our analysis is a -approximation
algorithm for computing the minimum height of a homotopy between two curves. No
algorithms were previously known for approximating this parameter.
Surprisingly, it is not even known if computing either the homotopic \Frechet
distance, or the minimum height of a homotopy, is in NP
Reshaping Convex Polyhedra
Given a convex polyhedral surface P, we define a tailoring as excising from P
a simple polygonal domain that contains one vertex v, and whose boundary can be
sutured closed to a new convex polyhedron via Alexandrov's Gluing Theorem. In
particular, a digon-tailoring cuts off from P a digon containing v, a subset of
P bounded by two equal-length geodesic segments that share endpoints, and can
then zip closed.
In the first part of this monograph, we primarily study properties of the
tailoring operation on convex polyhedra. We show that P can be reshaped to any
polyhedral convex surface Q a subset of conv(P) by a sequence of tailorings.
This investigation uncovered previously unexplored topics, including a notion
of unfolding of Q onto P--cutting up Q into pieces pasted non-overlapping onto
P.
In the second part of this monograph, we study vertex-merging processes on
convex polyhedra (each vertex-merge being in a sense the reverse of a
digon-tailoring), creating embeddings of P into enlarged surfaces. We aim to
produce non-overlapping polyhedral and planar unfoldings, which led us to
develop an apparently new theory of convex sets, and of minimal length
enclosing polygons, on convex polyhedra.
All our theorem proofs are constructive, implying polynomial-time algorithms.Comment: Research monograph. 234 pages, 105 figures, 55 references. arXiv
admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2008.0175
Unfolding Convex Polyhedra via Radially Monotone Cut Trees
A notion of "radially monotone" cut paths is introduced as an effective
choice for finding a non-overlapping edge-unfolding of a convex polyhedron.
These paths have the property that the two sides of the cut avoid overlap
locally as the cut is infinitesimally opened by the curvature at the vertices
along the path. It is shown that a class of planar, triangulated convex domains
always have a radially monotone spanning forest, a forest that can be found by
an essentially greedy algorithm. This algorithm can be mimicked in 3D and
applied to polyhedra inscribed in a sphere. Although the algorithm does not
provably find a radially monotone cut tree, it in fact does find such a tree
with high frequency, and after cutting unfolds without overlap. This
performance of a greedy algorithm leads to the conjecture that spherical
polyhedra always have a radially monotone cut tree and unfold without overlap.Comment: 41 pages, 39 figures. V2 updated to cite in an addendum work on
"self-approaching curves.
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