Riemannian simplices and triangulations

We study a natural intrinsic definition of geometric simplices in Riemannian manifolds of arbitrary dimension $n$, and exploit these simplices to obtain criteria for triangulating compact Riemannian manifolds. These geometric simplices are defined using Karcher means. Given a finite set of vertices in a convex set on the manifold, the point that minimises the weighted sum of squared distances to the vertices is the Karcher mean relative to the weights. Using barycentric coordinates as the weights, we obtain a smooth map from the standard Euclidean simplex to the manifold. A Riemannian simplex is defined as the image of this barycentric coordinate map. In this work we articulate criteria that guarantee that the barycentric coordinate map is a smooth embedding. If it is not, we say the Riemannian simplex is degenerate. Quality measures for the "thickness" or "fatness" of Euclidean simplices can be adapted to apply to these Riemannian simplices. For manifolds of dimension 2, the simplex is non-degenerate if it has a positive quality measure, as in the Euclidean case. However, when the dimension is greater than two, non-degeneracy can be guaranteed only when the quality exceeds a positive bound that depends on the size of the simplex and local bounds on the absolute values of the sectional curvatures of the manifold. An analysis of the geometry of non-degenerate Riemannian simplices leads to conditions which guarantee that a simplicial complex is homeomorphic to the manifold

Constructing Intrinsic Delaunay Triangulations of Submanifolds

We describe an algorithm to construct an intrinsic Delaunay triangulation of a smooth closed submanifold of Euclidean space. Using results established in a companion paper on the stability of Delaunay triangulations on $\delta$-generic point sets, we establish sampling criteria which ensure that the intrinsic Delaunay complex coincides with the restricted Delaunay complex and also with the recently introduced tangential Delaunay complex. The algorithm generates a point set that meets the required criteria while the tangential complex is being constructed. In this way the computation of geodesic distances is avoided, the runtime is only linearly dependent on the ambient dimension, and the Delaunay complexes are guaranteed to be triangulations of the manifold

A probabilistic approach to reducing the algebraic complexity of computing Delaunay triangulations

Computing Delaunay triangulations in $\mathbb{R}^d$ involves evaluating the so-called in\_sphere predicate that determines if a point $x$ lies inside, on or outside the sphere circumscribing $d+1$ points $p_0,\ldots ,p_d$. This predicate reduces to evaluating the sign of a multivariate polynomial of degree $d+2$ in the coordinates of the points $x, \, p_0,\, \ldots,\, p_d$. Despite much progress on exact geometric computing, the fact that the degree of the polynomial increases with $d$ makes the evaluation of the sign of such a polynomial problematic except in very low dimensions. In this paper, we propose a new approach that is based on the witness complex, a weak form of the Delaunay complex introduced by Carlsson and de Silva. The witness complex $\mathrm{Wit} (L,W)$ is defined from two sets $L$ and $W$ in some metric space $X$: a finite set of points $L$ on which the complex is built, and a set $W$ of witnesses that serves as an approximation of $X$. A fundamental result of de Silva states that $\mathrm{Wit}(L,W)=\mathrm{Del} (L)$ if $W=X=\mathbb{R}^d$. In this paper, we give conditions on $L$ that ensure that the witness complex and the Delaunay triangulation coincide when $W$ is a finite set, and we introduce a new perturbation scheme to compute a perturbed set $L'$ close to $L$ such that $\mathrm{Del} (L')= \mathrm{wit} (L', W)$. Our perturbation algorithm is a geometric application of the Moser-Tardos constructive proof of the Lov\'asz local lemma. The only numerical operations we use are (squared) distance comparisons (i.e., predicates of degree 2). The time-complexity of the algorithm is sublinear in $|W|$. Interestingly, although the algorithm does not compute any measure of simplex quality, a lower bound on the thickness of the output simplices can be guaranteed.Comment: 24 page

An obstruction to Delaunay triangulations in Riemannian manifolds

Delaunay has shown that the Delaunay complex of a finite set of points $P$ of Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^m$ triangulates the convex hull of $P$, provided that $P$ satisfies a mild genericity property. Voronoi diagrams and Delaunay complexes can be defined for arbitrary Riemannian manifolds. However, Delaunay's genericity assumption no longer guarantees that the Delaunay complex will yield a triangulation; stronger assumptions on $P$ are required. A natural one is to assume that $P$ is sufficiently dense. Although results in this direction have been claimed, we show that sample density alone is insufficient to ensure that the Delaunay complex triangulates a manifold of dimension greater than 2.Comment: This is a revision and extension of a note that appeared as an appendix in the (otherwise unpublished) report arXiv:1303.649

Simplices modelled on spaces of constant curvature

We give non-degeneracy criteria for Riemannian simplices based on simplices in spaces of constant sectional curvature. It extends previous work on Riemannian simplices, where we developed Riemannian simplices with respect to Euclidean reference simplices. The criteria we give in this article are in terms of quality measures for spaces of constant curvature that we develop here. We see that simplices in spaces that have nearly constant curvature, are already non-degenerate under very weak quality demands. This is of importance because it allows for sampling of Riemannian manifolds based on anisotropy of the manifold and not (absolute) curvature

Local Criteria for Triangulation of Manifolds

We present criteria for establishing a triangulation of a manifold. Given a manifold M, a simplicial complex A, and a map H from the underlying space of A to M, our criteria are presented in local coordinate charts for M, and ensure that H is a homeomorphism. These criteria do not require a differentiable structure, or even an explicit metric on M. No Delaunay property of A is assumed. The result provides a triangulation guarantee for algorithms that construct a simplicial complex by working in local coordinate patches. Because the criteria are easily verified in such a setting, they are expected to be of general use

A Probabilistic Approach to Reducing Algebraic Complexity of Delaunay Triangulations

International audienceWe propose algorithms to compute the Delaunay triangulation of a point set L using only (squared) distance comparisons (i.e., predicates of degree 2). Our approach is based on the witness complex, a weak form of the Delaunay complex introduced by Carlsson and de Silva. We give conditions that ensure that the witness complex and the Delaunay triangulation coincide and we introduce a new perturbation scheme to compute a perturbed set L′ close to L such that the Delaunay triangulation and the witness complex coincide. Our perturbation algorithm is a geometric application of the Moser-Tardos constructive proof of the Lovász local lemma

Delaunay triangulation of manifolds

We present an algorithmic framework for producing Delaunay triangulations of manifolds. The input to the algorithm is a set of sample points together with coordinate patches indexed by those points. The transition functions between nearby coordinate patches are required to be bi-Lipschitz with a constant close to 1. The primary novelty of the framework is that it can accommodate abstract manifolds that are not presented as submanifolds of Euclidean space. The output is a manifold simplicial complex that is the Delaunay complex of a perturbed set of points on the manifold. The guarantee of a manifold output complex demands no smoothness requirement on the transition functions, beyond the bi-Lipschitz constraint. In the smooth setting, when the transition functions are defined by common coordinate charts, such as the exponential map on a Riemannian manifold, the output manifold is homeomorphic to the original manifold, when the sampling is sufficiently dense.Nous présentons un cadre algorithmique pour construire des triangulations de Delaunay de variétés. L'entrée de l'algorithme est un ensemble de points ainsi que que des cartes locales euclidiennes indicées par ses points. Les fonctions de transition entre cartes voisines doivent être bi-Lipschitz avec une constante de Lipschitz proche de 1, mais pas nécessairement lisses. La principale nouveauté de notre approche est de permettre de traiter des variétés abstraites qui ne sont pas des sous-variétés d'un espace euclidien. L'algorithme produit un complexe simplicial qui est le complexe de Delaunay d'un ensemble perturbé des points d'entrée. On peut garantir que le complexe simplicial fourni est une variété. Dans le cas où les fonctions de transition sont lisses et que les cartes locales sont définies par l'application exponentielle sur une variété Riemannienne, le complexe calculé est homéomorphe à la variété originale quand l'échantillonnage est suffisamment dense

Local conditions for triangulating submanifolds of Euclidean space

In this paper, we consider the following setting: suppose that we are given a manifold in Rd with positive reach. Moreover assume that we have an embedded simplical complex A without boundary, whose vertex set lies on the manifold, is sufficiently dense and such that all simplices in A have sufficient quality. We prove that if, locally, interiors of the projection of the simplices onto the tangent space do not intersect, then A is a triangulation of the manifold, that is they are homeomorphic