Abstract
Giben a family C of regions bounded by simple closed curves in the plane, the complexity of their union is defined as the number of points along the boundary ∪C, which belong to more than one curve. Similarly, one can define the complexity of the union of 3-dimensional bodies, as the number of points on the boundary of the union, belonging to the surfaces of at least three distinct members of the family. We survey some upper bounds on the complexity of the union of n geometric objects satisfying various natural conditions. These problems play a central role in the design and analysis of many geometric algorithms arising in motion planning and computer graphics.
Supported by the National Science Foundation (USA) and the National Fund for Scientific Research (Hungary).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
P. Agarwal, M. Katz, and M. Sharir: Computing depth order and related problems, Comput. Geom. Theory Appl. 5 (1995), 187–206.
P. Agarwal and M. Sharir: Pipes, cigars, and kreplach: The union of Minkowski sums in three dimensions, Discrete Comput. Geom. 24 (2000), 645–685.
B. Aronov, A. Efrat, D. Halperin, and M. Sharir: On the number of regular vertices of the union of Jordan regions, in: Algorithm Theory, SWAT’98 (Stockholm), Lecture Notes in Comput. Sci. 1432, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1998, 322–334.
B. Aronov and M. Sharir: On translational motion planning of a convex polyhedron in 3-space, SIAM J. Comput. 26 (1997), 1785–1803.
M. Atallah: Some dynamic computational geometry problems, Computers and Mathematics with Applications 11 (1985), 1171–1181.
M. de Berg, M. Katz, F. van der Stappen, and J. Vleugels: Realistic input models for geometric algorithms, in: Proc. 13th Annual Symposium on Computational Geometry, ACM Press, 1997, 294–303.
J. L. Bentley and T. A. Ottmann: Algorithms for reporting and counting geometric intersections, IEEE Trans. Comput. C-28 (1979), 643–647.
J.-D. Boissonnat, M. Sharirs, B. Tagansky, and M. Yvines: Voronoi diagrams in higher dimensions under certain polyhedral distance functions, Discrete Comput. Geom. 19 (1998), 485–519.
Ch. Chojnacki (A. Hanani): Über wesentlich unplättbare Kurven im dreidimensionalen Raume, Fund. Math. 23 (1934), 135–142.
K. Clarkson, H. Edelsbrunner, L. Guibas, M. Sharir, E. Welzl: Combinational complexity bounds for arrangements of curves and surfaces, Discrete and Computational Geometry 5 (1990), 99–160.
H. Edelsbrunner, L. Guibas, J. Hershberger, J. Pach, R. Pollack, R. Seidel, M. Sharir, and J. Snoeyink: On arrangements of Jordan arcs with three intersections per pair, Discrete Comput. Geom. 4 (1989), 523–539.
A. Efrat: The complexity of the union of (α β)-covered objects, Proceedings of the 15th Annual Symposium on Computational Geometry, ACM Press, 1999, 134–142.
A. Efrat and M. J. Katz: On the union of k-curved objects. Comput. Geom. Theory Appl. 14 (1999), 241–254.
A. Efrat, G. Rote, and M. Sharir: On the union of fat wedges and separating a collection of segments by a line, Comput. Geom. Theory Appl. 3 (1993), 277–288.
A. Efrat and M. Sharir: On the complexity of the union of fat convex objects in the plane, Discrete Comput. Geom. 23 (2000), 171–189.
P. Erdös: On extremal problems of graphs and hypergraphs, Israel J. Math. 2 (1964), 183–190.
L. Guibas and M. Sharir: Combinatorics and algorithms of arrangements, in: New Trends in Discrete and Computational Geometry (J. Pach, ed.), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1993, 9–36.
P. Gupta, R. Janardan, and M. Smid: A technique for adding range restrictions to generalized searching problems, Inform. Process. Lett. 64 (1997), 263–269.
D. Halperin and M. Sharir: New bounds for lower envelopes in three dimensions, with applications to visibility in terrains, Discrete Comput. Geom. 12 (1994), 313–326.
S. Hart and M. Sharir: Nonlinearity of Davenport-Schinzel sequences and of generalized path compression schemes, Combinatorica 6 (1986), 151–177.
G. O. H. Katona: On a problem of L. Fejes Toth, Studia Sci. Math. Hungar. 12 (1977), 77–80.
M. J. Katz: 3-D vertical ray shooting and 2-D point enclosure, range searching, and arc shooting amidst convex fat objects, Comput. Geom. Theory Appl. 8 (1997), 299–316.
M. D. Kovalev: A property of convex sets and its application (Russian), Mat. Zametki 44 (1988), 89–99. English translation: Math. Notes 44 (1988), 537—543.
K. Kedem, R. Livne, J. Pach and M. Sharir: On the union of Jordan regions and collision-free translational motion amidst polygonal obstacles, Discrete Comput. Geom. 1 (1986), 59–71.
K. Kedem and M. Sharir: An efficient motion-planning algorithm for a convex polygonal object in two-dimensional polygonal space, Discrete Comput. Geom. 5 (1990), 43–75.
M. van Kreveld: On fat partitioning, fat covering and the union size of polygons, Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications 9 (1998), 197–210.
D. Leven and M. Sharir: Planning a purely translational motion for a convex object in two-dimensional space using generalized Voronoi diagrams, Discrete Comput. Geom. 2 (1987), 9–31.
L. Lovász, J. Pach, and M. Szegedy: On Conway’s thrackle conjecture, Discrete Comput. Geom. 18 (1997), 369–376.
T. Lozano-Pérez and M. A. Wesley: An algorithm for planning collision-free paths among polyhedral obstacles, Commun. ACM 22 (1979), 560–570.
J. Matoušsek, J. Pach, M. Sharir, S. Sifrony, and E. Welzl: Fat triangles determine linearly many holes, SIAM Journal of Computing 23 (1994), 154–169.
P. McMullen: On the upper-bound conjecture for convex polytopes, J. Combinatorial Theory, Ser. B 10 (1971), 187–200.
J. Pach and P.K. Agarwal: Combinatorial Geometry, J. Wiley and Sons, New York, 1995.
J. Pach, I. Safruti, and M. Sharir, The union of congruent cubes in three dimensions, 17th ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry, 2001, accepted.
J. Pach and M. Sharir: The upper envelope of piecewise linear functions and the boundary of a region enclosed by convex plates: combinatorial analysis, Discrete Comput. Geom. 4 (1989), 291–309.
J. Pach and M. Sharir: On the boundary of the union of planar convex sets, Discrete Comput. Geom. 21 (1999), 321–328.
J. Pach and G. Tardos: On the boundary complexity of the union of fat triangles, Proceedings of 41st Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, Los Angeles, 2000.
F. van der Stappen: Motion Planning amidst Fat Obstacles (Ph. D. Thesis, Faculteit Wiskunde & Informatica, Universiteit Utrecht), 1994.
F. van der Stappen, D. Halperin, and M. Overmars: The complexity of the free space for a robot moving amidst fat obstacles, Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications 3 (1993), 353–373.
J. T. Schwartz and M. Sharir: On the “piano movers” problem I,II, Comm. Pure Applied Math. 36 (1983), 345–398 and Adv. Applied Math. 4 (1983), 298—351.
J. T. Schwartz and M. Sharir: A survey of motion planning and related geometric algorithms, in: Geometric Reasoning (D. Kapur and J. Mundy, eds.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989, 157–169.
J. T. Schwartz and M. Sharir: Algorithmic motion planning in robotics, in: Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science (J. van Leeuwen, ed.), Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1990, 391–430.
M. Sharir: Almost tight upper bounds for lower envelopes in higher dimensions, Discrete Comput. Geom. 12 (1994), 327–345.
M. Sharir and P.K. Agarwel: Davenport-Schinzel Sequences and Their Geometric Applications, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.
W. T. Tutte: Toward a theory of crossing numbers, Journal of Combinatorial Theory 8 (1970), 45–53.
S. Whitesides and R. Zhao: K-admissible collections of Jordan curves and offsets of circular arc figures, Technical Report SOCS 90.08, McGill University, Montreal, 1990.
A. Wiernik and M. Sharir: Planar realizations of nonlinear Davenport-Schinzel sequences by segment, Discrete Comput. Geom. 3 (1988, 15–47.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Pach, J. (2001). On the complexity of the union of geometric objects. In: Akiyama, J., Kano, M., Urabe, M. (eds) Discrete and Computational Geometry. JCDCG 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2098. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-47738-1_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-47738-1_28
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-42306-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47738-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive