We consider the cost of general orthogonal range queries in random quadtrees.
The cost of a given query is encoded into a (random) function of four variables
which characterize the coordinates of two opposite corners of the query
rectangle. We prove that, when suitably shifted and rescaled, the random cost
function converges uniformly in probability towards a random field that is
characterized as the unique solution to a distributional fixed-point equation.
We also state similar results for 2-d trees. Our results imply for instance
that the worst case query satisfies the same asymptotic estimates as a typical
query, and thereby resolve an old question of Chanzy, Devroye and Zamora-Cura
[\emph{Acta Inf.}, 37:355--383, 2000]Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure