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Computational Geometry

Computational geometry is a branch of computer science focused on geometric algorithms and problems. It has applications in computer graphics, CAD/CAM, robotics, GIS, circuit design, and computer vision. There are two main branches - combinatorial computational geometry which deals with discrete geometric objects, and numerical computational geometry which represents real-world objects for computations. Core problems include convex hull, Voronoi diagrams, closest pair of points, and triangulations. Computational geometry also studies dynamic problems where the input changes over time.

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123 views

Computational Geometry

Computational geometry is a branch of computer science focused on geometric algorithms and problems. It has applications in computer graphics, CAD/CAM, robotics, GIS, circuit design, and computer vision. There are two main branches - combinatorial computational geometry which deals with discrete geometric objects, and numerical computational geometry which represents real-world objects for computations. Core problems include convex hull, Voronoi diagrams, closest pair of points, and triangulations. Computational geometry also studies dynamic problems where the input changes over time.

Uploaded by

Abhishek Choudhary
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY

INTRODUCTION
Computational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of
algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry. Some purely geometrical problems
arise out of the study of computational geometric algorithms, and such problems are also
considered to be part of computational geometry. While modern computational geometry is a
recent development, it is one of the oldest fields of computing with history stretching back to
antiquity.

Computational complexity is central to computational geometry, with great practical


significance if algorithms are used on very large datasets containing tens or hundreds of
millions of points. For such sets, the difference between O(n2) and O(n log n) may be the
difference between days and seconds of computation.

The main impetus for the development of computational geometry as a discipline was
progress in computer graphics and computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM),
but many problems in computational geometry are classical in nature, and may come
from mathematical visualization.

Other important applications of computational geometry include robotics (motion planning


and visibility problems), geographic information systems (GIS) (geometrical location and
search, route planning), integrated circuit design (IC geometry design and
verification), computer-aided engineering (CAE) (mesh generation), computer vision (3D
reconstruction).
BRANCHES OF COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY

The main branches of computational geometry are:

• Combinatorial computational geometry, also called algorithmic geometry, which deals


with geometric objects as discrete entities. A groundlaying book in the subject
by Preparata and Shamos dates the first use of the term "computational geometry" in
this sense by 1975.[1]

• Numerical computational geometry, also called machine geometry, computer-aided


geometric design (CAGD), or geometric modeling, which deals primarily with
representing real-world objects in forms suitable for computer computations in
CAD/CAM systems. This branch may be seen as a further development of descriptive
geometry and is often considered a branch of computer graphics or CAD. The term
"computational geometry" in this meaning has been in use since 1971.
Combinatorial computational geometry

The primary goal of research in combinatorial computational geometry is to develop


efficient algorithms and data structures for solving problems stated in terms of basic geometrical
objects: points, line segments, polygons, polyhedra, etc.
Some of these problems seem so simple that they were not regarded as problems at all until the
advent of computers. Consider, for example, the Closest pair problem:

• Given n points in the plane, find the two with the smallest distance from each other.
One could compute the distances between all the pairs of points, of which there are n(n-1)/2,
then pick the pair with the smallest distance. This brute-force algorithm takes O(n2) time; i.e. its
execution time is proportional to the square of the number of points. A classic result in
computational geometry was the formulation of an algorithm that takes O(n log n). Randomized
algorithms that take O(n) expected time,[3] as well as a deterministic algorithm that takes O(n log
log n) time,[4] have also been discovered.

PROBLEM CLASSES

The core problems in computational geometry may be classified in different ways, according to
various criteria. The following general classes may be distinguished.

Static problems
In the problems of this category, some input is given and the corresponding output needs to be
constructed or found. Some fundamental problems of this type are:

• Convex hull: Given a set of points, find the smallest convex polyhedron/polygon containing
all the points.
• Line segment intersection: Find the intersections between a given set of line segments.
• Delaunay triangulation
• Voronoi diagram: Given a set of points, partition the space according to which points are
closest to the given points.
• Linear programming
• Closest pair of points: Given a set of points, find the two with the smallest distance from each
other.
• Largest empty circle: Given a set of points, find a largest circle with its center inside of their
convex hull and enclosing none of them.
• Euclidean shortest path: Connect two points in a Euclidean space (with polyhedral obstacles)
by a shortest path.
• Polygon triangulation: Given a polygon, partition its interior into triangles
• Mesh generation
• Boolean operations on polygons
The computational complexity for this class of problems is estimated by the time and space
(computer memory) required to solve a given problem instance.

Geometric query problems


In geometric query problems, commonly known as geometric search problems, the input consists
of two parts: the search space part and the query part, which varies over the problem instances.
The search space typically needs to be preprocessed, in a way that multiple queries can be
answered efficiently.
Some fundamental geometric query problems are:

• Range searching: Preprocess a set of points, in order to efficiently count the number of
points inside a query region.
• Point location: Given a partitioning of the space into cells, produce a data structure that
efficiently tells in which cell a query point is located.
• Nearest neighbor: Preprocess a set of points, in order to efficiently find which point is closest
to a query point.
• Ray tracing: Given a set of objects in space, produce a data structure that efficiently tells
which object a query ray intersects first.
If the search space is fixed, the computational complexity for this class of problems is usually
estimated by:

• the time and space required to construct the data structure to be searched in
• the time (and sometimes an extra space) to answer queries.
For the case when the search space is allowed to vary, see "Dynamic problems".

Dynamic problems
Yet another major class is the dynamic problems, in which the goal is to find an efficient
algorithm for finding a solution repeatedly after each incremental modification of the input data
(addition or deletion input geometric elements). Algorithms for problems of this type typically
involve dynamic data structures. Any of the computational geometric problems may be converted
into a dynamic one, at the cost of increased processing time. For example, the range
searching problem may be converted into the dynamic range searching problem by providing for
addition and/or deletion of the points. The dynamic convex hull problem is to keep track of the
convex hull, e.g., for the dynamically changing set of points, i.e., while the input points are
inserted or deleted.
The computational complexity for this class of problems is estimated by:

• the time and space required to construct the data structure to be searched in
• the time and space to modify the searched data structure after an incremental change in the
search space
• the time (and sometimes an extra space) to answer a query.
Variations
Some problems may be treated as belonging to either of the categories, depending on the
context. For example, consider the following problem.

• Point in polygon: Decide whether a point is inside or outside a given polygon.


In many applications this problem is treated as a single-shot one, i.e., belonging to the first class.
For example, in many applications of computer graphics a common problem is to find which area
on the screen is clicked by a pointer. However, in some applications, the polygon in question is
invariant, while the point represents a query. For example, the input polygon may represent a
border of a country and a point is a position of an aircraft, and the problem is to determine
whether the aircraft violated the border. Finally, in the previously mentioned example of computer
graphics, in CAD applications the changing input data are often stored in dynamic data
structures, which may be exploited to speed-up the point-in-polygon queries.
In some contexts of query problems there are reasonable expectations on the sequence of the
queries, which may be exploited either for efficient data structures or for tighter computational
complexity estimates. For example, in some cases it is important to know the worst case for the
total time for the whole sequence of N queries, rather than for a single query. See also
"amortized analysis".

Numerical computational geometry

This branch is also known as geometric modelling and computer-aided geometric


design (CAGD).
Core problems are curve and surface modelling and representation.
The most important instruments here are parametric curves and parametric surfaces, such
as Bézier curves, spline curves and surfaces. An important non-parametric approach is the level-
set method.
Application areas of computational geometry include shipbuilding, aircraft, and automotive
industries.

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