Computational Geometry
We present a new algorithm for computing the straight skeleton of a polygon. For a polygon with $n$ vertices, among which $r$ are reflex vertices, we give a deterministic algorithm that reduces the straight skeleton computation to a…
Smooth parametrization consists in a subdivision of the mathematical objects under consideration into simple pieces, and then parametric representation of each piece, while keeping control of high order derivatives. The main goal of the…
We show the first non-trivial positive algorithmic results (i.e. programs whose output is larger than their size), in a model of self-assembly that has so far resisted many attempts of formal analysis or programming: the planar…
In this work we investigate the parallel computation of homology using the Mayer-Vietoris principle. We present a two stage approach for parallelizing persistence. In the first stage, we produce a cover of the input cell complex by…
The tangram and Sei Shonagon Chie no Ita are popular dissection puzzles consisting of seven pieces. Each puzzle can be formed by identifying edges from sixteen identical right isosceles triangles. It is known that the tangram can form 13…
A fundamental problem in wireless sensor networks is to connect a given set of sensors while minimizing the \emph{receiver interference}. This is modeled as follows: each sensor node corresponds to a point in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and each…
The greedy spanner is the highest quality geometric spanner (in e.g. edge count and weight, both in theory and practice) known to be computable in polynomial time. Unfortunately, all known algorithms for computing it take Omega(n^2) time,…
We study the convex-hull problem in a probabilistic setting, motivated by the need to handle data uncertainty inherent in many applications, including sensor databases, location-based services and computer vision. In our framework, the…
We consider maintaining the contour tree $\mathbb{T}$ of a piecewise-linear triangulation $\mathbb{M}$ that is the graph of a time varying height function $h: \mathbb{R}^2 \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$. We carefully describe the combinatorial…
In memory-constrained algorithms we have read-only access to the input, and the number of additional variables is limited. In this paper we introduce the compressed stack technique, a method that allows to transform algorithms whose space…
Let $P$ and $Q$ be two simple polygons in the plane of total complexity $n$, each of which can be decomposed into at most $k$ convex parts. We present an $(1-\varepsilon)$-approximation algorithm, for finding the translation of $Q$, which…
We introduce the notion of t-restricted doubling dimension of a point set in Euclidean space as the local intrinsic dimension up to scale t. In many applications information is only relevant for a fixed range of scales. We present an…
A \emph{pier fractal} is a discrete self-similar fractal whose generator contains at least one \emph{pier}, that is, a member of the generator with exactly one adjacent point. Tree fractals and pinch-point fractals are special cases of pier…
Given a set $S$ of $n$ points in $d$-dimensional Euclidean metric space $X$ and a small positive real number $\epsilon$, we present an algorithm to preprocess $S$ and answer queries that require finding a set $S' \subseteq S$ of…
We consider embeddings of planar graphs in $R^2$ where vertices map to points and edges map to polylines. We refer to such an embedding as a polyline drawing, and ask how few bends are required to form such a drawing for an arbitrary planar…
Given a point set P in 2D, the problem of finding the smallest set of unit disks that cover all of P is NP-hard. We present a simple algorithm for this problem with an approximation factor of 25/6 in the Euclidean norm and 2 in the max…
Given a set $\mathsf{P}$ of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$, we show how to insert a set $\mathsf{X}$ of $O( n^{1-1/d} )$ additional points, such that $\mathsf{P}$ can be broken into two sets $\mathsf{P}_1$ and $\mathsf{P}_2$, of roughly equal…
Polygon clipping is a frequent operation in Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian methods, Computer Graphics, GIS, and CAD. In fact, clipping algorithms are said to be one of the most important operations in computer graphics. Thus, efficient and…
We show that the problem of finding the simplex of largest volume in the convex hull of $n$ points in $\mathbb{Q}^d$ can be approximated with a factor of $O(\log d)^{d/2}$ in polynomial time. This improves upon the previously best known…
A graph $G$ with vertex set $\{v_1,v_2,\ldots,v_n\}$ is an intersection graph of segments if there are segments $s_1,\ldots,s_n$ in the plane such that $s_i$ and $s_j$ have a common point if and only if $\{v_i,v_j\}$ is an edge of~$G$. In…