A kinetic data structure (KDS) maintains an attribute of interest in a system of geometric objects undergoing continuous motion. In this paper we develop a conceptual framework for kinetic data structures, propose a number of criteria for the quality of such structures, and describe a number of fundamental techniques for their design. We illustrate these general concepts by presenting kinetic data structures for maintaining the convex hull and the closest pair of moving points in the plane; these structures behavewell according to the proposed quality criteria for KDSs.

In the past 20 years there has been treftlendous progress in developing and analyzing parallel algorithftls. Researchers have developed efficient parallel algorithms to solve most problems for which efficient sequential solutions are known. Although some ofthese algorithms are efficient only in a theoretical framework, many are quite efficient in practice or have key ideas that have been used in efficient implementations. This research on parallel algorithms has not only improved our general understanding ofparallelism but in several cases has led to improvements in sequential algorithms. Unf:ortunately there has been less success in developing good languages f:or prograftlftling parallel algorithftls, particularly languages that are well suited for teaching and prototyping algorithms. There has been a large gap between languages

We propose three indexing schemes for storing a set S of N points in the plane, each moving along a linear trajectory, so that any query of the following form can be answered quickly: Given a rectangle R and a real value t; report all K points of S that lie inside R at time t: We first present an indexing structure that, for any given constant e> 0; uses OðN=BÞ disk blocks and answers a query in OððN=BÞ 1=2þe þ K=BÞ I/Os, where B is the block size. It can also report all the points of S that lie inside R during a given time interval. A point can be inserted or deleted, or the trajectory of a point can be changed, in Oðlog 2 B NÞ I/Os. Next, we present a general approach that improves the query time if the queries arrive in chronological order, by allowing the index to evolve over time. We obtain a tradeoff between the query time and the number of times the index needs to be updated as the points move. We also describe an indexing scheme in which the number of I/Os required to answer a query depends monotonically on the difference between the query time stamp t and the current time. Finally, we develop an efficient indexing scheme to answer approximate

... In this paper we present a general framework for addressing such problems and the tools for designing and analyzing relevant algorithms, which we call kinetic data structures. We discuss kinetic data structures for a variety of fundamental geometric problems, such as the maintenance of convex hulls, Voronoi and Delaunay diagrams, closest pairs, and intersection and visibility problems. We also briefly address the issues that arise in implementing such structures robustly and efficiently. The resulting techniques satisfy three desirable properties: (1) they exploit the continuity of the motion of the objects to gain efficiency, (2) the number of events processed by the algorithms is close to the minimum necessary in the worst case, and (3) any object may change its `flight plan' at any moment with a low cost update to the simulation data structures. For computer applications dealing with motion in the physical world, kinetic data structures lead to simulation performance unattainable by other means. In addition, they raise fundamentally new combinatorial and algorithmic questions whose study may prove fruitful for other disciplines as well.

We study scalable parallel computational geometry algorithms for the coarse grained multicomputer model: p processors solving a problem on n data items, were each processor has O( n p ) AE O(1) local memory and all processors are connected via some arbitrary interconnection network (e.g. mesh, hypercube, fat tree). We present O( Tsequential p + T s (n; p)) time scalable parallel algorithms for several computational geometry problems. T s (n; p) refers to the time of a global sort operation. Our results are independent of the multicomputer's interconnection network. Their time complexities become optimal when Tsequential p dominates T s (n; p) or when T s (n; p) is optimal. This is the case for several standard architectures, including meshes and hypercubes, and a wide range of ratios n p that include many of the currently available machine configurations. Our methods also have some important practical advantages: For interprocessor communication, they use only a small fixed numb...

We present a near linear time algorithm for constructing hierarchical nets in finite metric spaces with constant doubling dimension. This data-structure is then applied to obtain improved algorithms for the following problems: approximate nearest neighbor search, well-separated pair decomposition, spanner construction, compact representation scheme, doubling measure, and computation of the (approximate) Lipschitz constant of a function. In all cases, the running (preprocessing) time is near linear and the space being used is linear. 1

This is the preliminary version of a chapter that will appear in the Handbook on Computational Geometry, edited by J.-R. Sack and J. Urrutia. A comprehensive overview is given of algorithms and data structures for proximity problems on point sets in IR D . In particular, the closest pair problem, the exact and approximate post-office problem, and the problem of constructing spanners are discussed in detail. Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 The static closest pair problem 4 2.1 Preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.2 Algorithms that are optimal in the algebraic computation tree model . 5 2.2.1 An algorithm based on the Voronoi diagram . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.2.2 A divide-and-conquer algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.2.3 A plane sweep algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.3 A deterministic algorithm that uses indirect addressing . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3.1 The degraded grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

. We use known data structures for ray-shooting and linear-programming queries to derive new output-sensitive results on convex hulls, extreme points, and related problems. We show that the f -face convex hull of an n-point set P in a fixed dimension d # 2 can be constructed in O(n log f + (nf) 1-1/(#d/2#+1) log O(1) n) time; this is optimal if f = O(n 1/#d/2# / log K n) for some sufficiently large constant K . We also show that the h extreme points of P can be computed in O(n log O(1) h + (nh) 1-1/(#d/2#+1) log O(1) n) time. These results are then applied to produce an algorithm that computes the vertices of all the convex layers of P in O(n 2-# ) time for any constant #<2/(#d/2# 2 + 1). Finally, we obtain improved time bounds for other problems including levels in arrangements and linear programming with few violated constraints. In all of our algorithms the input is assumed to be in general position. 1. Introduction Let P be a set of n points in d-dimen...

) Pankaj K. Agarwal Lars Arge y Jeff Erickson z Paolo G. Franciosa x Jeffrey Scott Vitter -- Abstract We show how to preprocess a set S of points in R d to get an external memory data structure that efficiently supports linear-constraint queries. Each query is in the form of a linear constraint a \Delta x b; the data structure must report all the points of S that satisfy the query. Our goal is to minimize the number of disk blocks required to store the data structure and the number of disk accesses (I/Os) required to answer a query. For d = 2, we present the first near-linear size data structures that can answer linear-constraint queries using an optimal number of I/Os. We also present a linear-size data structure that can answer queries efficiently in the worst case. We combine these two approaches to obtain tradeoffs between space and query time. Finally, we show that some of our techniques extend to higher dimensions d. Center for Geometric Computing, Computer...

Abstract-Let S be a set of n points in the Euclidean plane. The convex layers of S are the convex polygons obtained by iterating on the following procedure: compute the convex hull of S and remove its vertices from S. This process of peeling a planar point set is central in the study of robust estimators in statistics. It also provides valuable information on the mor-phology of a set of sites and has proven to be an efficient preconditioning for range search problems. An optimal algorithm is described for comput-ing the convex layers of S. The algorithm runs in O ( n log n) time and requires O(n) space. Also addressed is the problem of determining the depth of a query point within the convex layers of S, i.e., the number of layers that enclose the query point. This is essentially a planar point location problem, for which optimal solutions are therefore known. Taking advantage of structural properties of the problem, however, a much simpler optimal solution is derived. L I.