Data-sensitive metrics adapt distances locally based the density of data
points with the goal of aligning distances and some notion of similarity. In
this paper, we give the first exact algorithm for computing a data-sensitive
metric called the nearest neighbor metric. In fact, we prove the surprising
result that a previously published 3-approximation is an exact algorithm.
The nearest neighbor metric can be viewed as a special case of a
density-based distance used in machine learning, or it can be seen as an
example of a manifold metric. Previous computational research on such metrics
despaired of computing exact distances on account of the apparent difficulty of
minimizing over all continuous paths between a pair of points. We leverage the
exact computation of the nearest neighbor metric to compute sparse spanners and
persistent homology. We also explore the behavior of the metric built from
point sets drawn from an underlying distribution and consider the more general
case of inputs that are finite collections of path-connected compact sets.
The main results connect several classical theories such as the conformal
change of Riemannian metrics, the theory of positive definite functions of
Schoenberg, and screw function theory of Schoenberg and Von Neumann. We develop
novel proof techniques based on the combination of screw functions and
Lipschitz extensions that may be of independent interest.Comment: 15 page