TY - CONF AB - In this paper we introduce a pruning of the medial axis called the (λ,α)-medial axis (axλα). We prove that the (λ,α)-medial axis of a set K is stable in a Gromov-Hausdorff sense under weak assumptions. More formally we prove that if K and K′ are close in the Hausdorff (dH) sense then the (λ,α)-medial axes of K and K′ are close as metric spaces, that is the Gromov-Hausdorff distance (dGH) between the two is 1/4-Hölder in the sense that dGH (axλα(K),axλα(K′)) ≲ dH(K,K′)1/4. The Hausdorff distance between the two medial axes is also bounded, by dH (axλα(K),λα(K′)) ≲ dH(K,K′)1/2. These quantified stability results provide guarantees for practical computations of medial axes from approximations. Moreover, they provide key ingredients for studying the computability of the medial axis in the context of computable analysis. AU - Lieutier, André AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 13048 SN - 9781450399135 T2 - Proceedings of the 55th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing TI - Hausdorff and Gromov-Hausdorff stable subsets of the medial axis ER - TY - JOUR AB - We present criteria for establishing a triangulation of a manifold. Given a manifold M, a simplicial complex A, and a map H from the underlying space of A to M, our criteria are presented in local coordinate charts for M, and ensure that H is a homeomorphism. These criteria do not require a differentiable structure, or even an explicit metric on M. No Delaunay property of A is assumed. The result provides a triangulation guarantee for algorithms that construct a simplicial complex by working in local coordinate patches. Because the criteria are easily verified in such a setting, they are expected to be of general use. AU - Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel AU - Dyer, Ramsay AU - Ghosh, Arijit AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 12287 JF - Discrete & Computational Geometry KW - Computational Theory and Mathematics KW - Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics KW - Geometry and Topology KW - Theoretical Computer Science SN - 0179-5376 TI - Local criteria for triangulating general manifolds VL - 69 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Kleinjohann (Archiv der Mathematik 35(1):574–582, 1980; Mathematische Zeitschrift 176(3), 327–344, 1981) and Bangert (Archiv der Mathematik 38(1):54–57, 1982) extended the reach rch(S) from subsets S of Euclidean space to the reach rchM(S) of subsets S of Riemannian manifolds M, where M is smooth (we’ll assume at least C3). Bangert showed that sets of positive reach in Euclidean space and Riemannian manifolds are very similar. In this paper we introduce a slight variant of Kleinjohann’s and Bangert’s extension and quantify the similarity between sets of positive reach in Euclidean space and Riemannian manifolds in a new way: Given p∈M and q∈S, we bound the local feature size (a local version of the reach) of its lifting to the tangent space via the inverse exponential map (exp−1p(S)) at q, assuming that rchM(S) and the geodesic distance dM(p,q) are bounded. These bounds are motivated by the importance of the reach and local feature size to manifold learning, topological inference, and triangulating manifolds and the fact that intrinsic approaches circumvent the curse of dimensionality. AU - Boissonnat, Jean Daniel AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 12763 JF - Journal of Applied and Computational Topology SN - 2367-1726 TI - The reach of subsets of manifolds VL - 7 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Isomanifolds are the generalization of isosurfaces to arbitrary dimension and codimension, i.e., submanifolds of Rd defined as the zero set of some multivariate multivalued smooth function f:Rd→Rd−n, where n is the intrinsic dimension of the manifold. A natural way to approximate a smooth isomanifold M=f−1(0) is to consider its piecewise linear (PL) approximation M^ based on a triangulation T of the ambient space Rd. In this paper, we describe a simple algorithm to trace isomanifolds from a given starting point. The algorithm works for arbitrary dimensions n and d, and any precision D. Our main result is that, when f (or M) has bounded complexity, the complexity of the algorithm is polynomial in d and δ=1/D (and unavoidably exponential in n). Since it is known that for δ=Ω(d2.5), M^ is O(D2)-close and isotopic to M , our algorithm produces a faithful PL-approximation of isomanifolds of bounded complexity in time polynomial in d. Combining this algorithm with dimensionality reduction techniques, the dependency on d in the size of M^ can be completely removed with high probability. We also show that the algorithm can handle isomanifolds with boundary and, more generally, isostratifolds. The algorithm for isomanifolds with boundary has been implemented and experimental results are reported, showing that it is practical and can handle cases that are far ahead of the state-of-the-art. AU - Boissonnat, Jean Daniel AU - Kachanovich, Siargey AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 12960 IS - 2 JF - SIAM Journal on Computing SN - 0097-5397 TI - Tracing isomanifolds in Rd in time polynomial in d using Coxeter–Freudenthal–Kuhn triangulations VL - 52 ER - TY - CONF AB - The medial axis of a set consists of the points in the ambient space without a unique closest point on the original set. Since its introduction, the medial axis has been used extensively in many applications as a method of computing a topologically equivalent skeleton. Unfortunately, one limiting factor in the use of the medial axis of a smooth manifold is that it is not necessarily topologically stable under small perturbations of the manifold. To counter these instabilities various prunings of the medial axis have been proposed. Here, we examine one type of pruning, called burning. Because of the good experimental results, it was hoped that the burning method of simplifying the medial axis would be stable. In this work we show a simple example that dashes such hopes based on Bing’s house with two rooms, demonstrating an isotopy of a shape where the medial axis goes from collapsible to non-collapsible. AU - Chambers, Erin AU - Fillmore, Christopher D AU - Stephenson, Elizabeth R AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ED - Goaoc, Xavier ED - Kerber, Michael ID - 11428 SN - 1868-8969 T2 - 38th International Symposium on Computational Geometry TI - A cautionary tale: Burning the medial axis is unstable VL - 224 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Isomanifolds are the generalization of isosurfaces to arbitrary dimension and codimension, i.e. manifolds defined as the zero set of some multivariate vector-valued smooth function f : Rd → Rd−n. A natural (and efficient) way to approximate an isomanifold is to consider its Piecewise-Linear (PL) approximation based on a triangulation T of the ambient space Rd. In this paper, we give conditions under which the PL-approximation of an isomanifold is topologically equivalent to the isomanifold. The conditions are easy to satisfy in the sense that they can always be met by taking a sufficiently fine triangulation T . This contrasts with previous results on the triangulation of manifolds where, in arbitrary dimensions, delicate perturbations are needed to guarantee topological correctness, which leads to strong limitations in practice. We further give a bound on the Fréchet distance between the original isomanifold and its PL-approximation. Finally we show analogous results for the PL-approximation of an isomanifold with boundary. AU - Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 9649 JF - Foundations of Computational Mathematics TI - The topological correctness of PL approximations of isomanifolds VL - 22 ER - TY - CONF AB - Modeling a crystal as a periodic point set, we present a fingerprint consisting of density functionsthat facilitates the efficient search for new materials and material properties. We prove invarianceunder isometries, continuity, and completeness in the generic case, which are necessary featuresfor the reliable comparison of crystals. The proof of continuity integrates methods from discretegeometry and lattice theory, while the proof of generic completeness combines techniques fromgeometry with analysis. The fingerprint has a fast algorithm based on Brillouin zones and relatedinclusion-exclusion formulae. We have implemented the algorithm and describe its application tocrystal structure prediction. AU - Edelsbrunner, Herbert AU - Heiss, Teresa AU - Kurlin , Vitaliy AU - Smith, Philip AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 9345 SN - 1868-8969 T2 - 37th International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2021) TI - The density fingerprint of a periodic point set VL - 189 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We quantise Whitney’s construction to prove the existence of a triangulation for any C^2 manifold, so that we get an algorithm with explicit bounds. We also give a new elementary proof, which is completely geometric. AU - Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel AU - Kachanovich, Siargey AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 8940 IS - 1 JF - Discrete & Computational Geometry KW - Theoretical Computer Science KW - Computational Theory and Mathematics KW - Geometry and Topology KW - Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics SN - 0179-5376 TI - Triangulating submanifolds: An elementary and quantified version of Whitney’s method VL - 66 ER - TY - CONF AB - Isomanifolds are the generalization of isosurfaces to arbitrary dimension and codimension, i.e. submanifolds of ℝ^d defined as the zero set of some multivariate multivalued smooth function f: ℝ^d → ℝ^{d-n}, where n is the intrinsic dimension of the manifold. A natural way to approximate a smooth isomanifold M is to consider its Piecewise-Linear (PL) approximation M̂ based on a triangulation 𝒯 of the ambient space ℝ^d. In this paper, we describe a simple algorithm to trace isomanifolds from a given starting point. The algorithm works for arbitrary dimensions n and d, and any precision D. Our main result is that, when f (or M) has bounded complexity, the complexity of the algorithm is polynomial in d and δ = 1/D (and unavoidably exponential in n). Since it is known that for δ = Ω (d^{2.5}), M̂ is O(D²)-close and isotopic to M, our algorithm produces a faithful PL-approximation of isomanifolds of bounded complexity in time polynomial in d. Combining this algorithm with dimensionality reduction techniques, the dependency on d in the size of M̂ can be completely removed with high probability. We also show that the algorithm can handle isomanifolds with boundary and, more generally, isostratifolds. The algorithm for isomanifolds with boundary has been implemented and experimental results are reported, showing that it is practical and can handle cases that are far ahead of the state-of-the-art. AU - Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel AU - Kachanovich, Siargey AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 9441 SN - 1868-8969 T2 - 37th International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2021) TI - Tracing isomanifolds in Rd in time polynomial in d using Coxeter-Freudenthal-Kuhn triangulations VL - 189 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We consider the following setting: suppose that we are given a manifold M in Rd with positive reach. Moreover assume that we have an embedded simplical complex A without boundary, whose vertex set lies on the manifold, is sufficiently dense and such that all simplices in A have sufficient quality. We prove that if, locally, interiors of the projection of the simplices onto the tangent space do not intersect, then A is a triangulation of the manifold, that is, they are homeomorphic. AU - Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel AU - Dyer, Ramsay AU - Ghosh, Arijit AU - Lieutier, Andre AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 8248 JF - Discrete and Computational Geometry SN - 0179-5376 TI - Local conditions for triangulating submanifolds of Euclidean space VL - 66 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Coxeter triangulations are triangulations of Euclidean space based on a single simplex. By this we mean that given an individual simplex we can recover the entire triangulation of Euclidean space by inductively reflecting in the faces of the simplex. In this paper we establish that the quality of the simplices in all Coxeter triangulations is O(1/d−−√) of the quality of regular simplex. We further investigate the Delaunay property for these triangulations. Moreover, we consider an extension of the Delaunay property, namely protection, which is a measure of non-degeneracy of a Delaunay triangulation. In particular, one family of Coxeter triangulations achieves the protection O(1/d2). We conjecture that both bounds are optimal for triangulations in Euclidean space. AU - Choudhary, Aruni AU - Kachanovich, Siargey AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 7567 JF - Mathematics in Computer Science SN - 1661-8270 TI - Coxeter triangulations have good quality VL - 14 ER - TY - CONF AB - Isomanifolds are the generalization of isosurfaces to arbitrary dimension and codimension, i.e. manifolds defined as the zero set of some multivariate vector-valued smooth function f: ℝ^d → ℝ^(d-n). A natural (and efficient) way to approximate an isomanifold is to consider its Piecewise-Linear (PL) approximation based on a triangulation 𝒯 of the ambient space ℝ^d. In this paper, we give conditions under which the PL-approximation of an isomanifold is topologically equivalent to the isomanifold. The conditions are easy to satisfy in the sense that they can always be met by taking a sufficiently fine triangulation 𝒯. This contrasts with previous results on the triangulation of manifolds where, in arbitrary dimensions, delicate perturbations are needed to guarantee topological correctness, which leads to strong limitations in practice. We further give a bound on the Fréchet distance between the original isomanifold and its PL-approximation. Finally we show analogous results for the PL-approximation of an isomanifold with boundary. AU - Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 7952 SN - 1868-8969 T2 - 36th International Symposium on Computational Geometry TI - The topological correctness of PL-approximations of isomanifolds VL - 164 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Fejes Tóth [3] studied approximations of smooth surfaces in three-space by piecewise flat triangular meshes with a given number of vertices on the surface that are optimal with respect to Hausdorff distance. He proves that this Hausdorff distance decreases inversely proportional with the number of vertices of the approximating mesh if the surface is convex. He also claims that this Hausdorff distance is inversely proportional to the square of the number of vertices for a specific non-convex surface, namely a one-sheeted hyperboloid of revolution bounded by two congruent circles. We refute this claim, and show that the asymptotic behavior of the Hausdorff distance is linear, that is the same as for convex surfaces. AU - Vegter, Gert AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 8163 IS - 2 JF - Studia Scientiarum Mathematicarum Hungarica SN - 0081-6906 TI - Refutation of a claim made by Fejes Tóth on the accuracy of surface meshes VL - 57 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We give non-degeneracy criteria for Riemannian simplices based on simplices in spaces of constant sectional curvature. It extends previous work on Riemannian simplices, where we developed Riemannian simplices with respect to Euclidean reference simplices. The criteria we give in this article are in terms of quality measures for spaces of constant curvature that we develop here. We see that simplices in spaces that have nearly constant curvature, are already non-degenerate under very weak quality demands. This is of importance because it allows for sampling of Riemannian manifolds based on anisotropy of the manifold and not (absolute) curvature. AU - Dyer, Ramsay AU - Vegter, Gert AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 6515 IS - 1 JF - Journal of Computational Geometry SN - 1920-180X TI - Simplices modelled on spaces of constant curvature VL - 10 ER - TY - CONF AB - Fejes Tóth [5] and Schneider [9] studied approximations of smooth convex hypersurfaces in Euclidean space by piecewise flat triangular meshes with a given number of vertices on the hypersurface that are optimal with respect to Hausdorff distance. They proved that this Hausdorff distance decreases inversely proportional with m 2/(d−1), where m is the number of vertices and d is the dimension of Euclidean space. Moreover the pro-portionality constant can be expressed in terms of the Gaussian curvature, an intrinsic quantity. In this short note, we prove the extrinsic nature of this constant for manifolds of sufficiently high codimension. We do so by constructing an family of isometric embeddings of the flat torus in Euclidean space. AU - Vegter, Gert AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 6628 T2 - The 31st Canadian Conference in Computational Geometry TI - The extrinsic nature of the Hausdorff distance of optimal triangulations of manifolds ER - TY - JOUR AB - The construction of anisotropic triangulations is desirable for various applications, such as the numerical solving of partial differential equations and the representation of surfaces in graphics. To solve this notoriously difficult problem in a practical way, we introduce the discrete Riemannian Voronoi diagram, a discrete structure that approximates the Riemannian Voronoi diagram. This structure has been implemented and was shown to lead to good triangulations in $\mathbb{R}^2$ and on surfaces embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ as detailed in our experimental companion paper. In this paper, we study theoretical aspects of our structure. Given a finite set of points $\mathcal{P}$ in a domain $\Omega$ equipped with a Riemannian metric, we compare the discrete Riemannian Voronoi diagram of $\mathcal{P}$ to its Riemannian Voronoi diagram. Both diagrams have dual structures called the discrete Riemannian Delaunay and the Riemannian Delaunay complex. We provide conditions that guarantee that these dual structures are identical. It then follows from previous results that the discrete Riemannian Delaunay complex can be embedded in $\Omega$ under sufficient conditions, leading to an anisotropic triangulation with curved simplices. Furthermore, we show that, under similar conditions, the simplices of this triangulation can be straightened. AU - Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel AU - Rouxel-Labbé, Mael AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 6672 IS - 3 JF - SIAM Journal on Computing SN - 0097-5397 TI - Anisotropic triangulations via discrete Riemannian Voronoi diagrams VL - 48 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In this paper we discuss three results. The first two concern general sets of positive reach: we first characterize the reach of a closed set by means of a bound on the metric distortion between the distance measured in the ambient Euclidean space and the shortest path distance measured in the set. Secondly, we prove that the intersection of a ball with radius less than the reach with the set is geodesically convex, meaning that the shortest path between any two points in the intersection lies itself in the intersection. For our third result we focus on manifolds with positive reach and give a bound on the angle between tangent spaces at two different points in terms of the reach and the distance between the two points. AU - Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel AU - Lieutier, André AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 6671 IS - 1-2 JF - Journal of Applied and Computational Topology SN - 2367-1726 TI - The reach, metric distortion, geodesic convexity and the variation of tangent spaces VL - 3 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We introduce a multiscale topological description of the Megaparsec web-like cosmic matter distribution. Betti numbers and topological persistence offer a powerful means of describing the rich connectivity structure of the cosmic web and of its multiscale arrangement of matter and galaxies. Emanating from algebraic topology and Morse theory, Betti numbers and persistence diagrams represent an extension and deepening of the cosmologically familiar topological genus measure and the related geometric Minkowski functionals. In addition to a description of the mathematical background, this study presents the computational procedure for computing Betti numbers and persistence diagrams for density field filtrations. The field may be computed starting from a discrete spatial distribution of galaxies or simulation particles. The main emphasis of this study concerns an extensive and systematic exploration of the imprint of different web-like morphologies and different levels of multiscale clustering in the corresponding computed Betti numbers and persistence diagrams. To this end, we use Voronoi clustering models as templates for a rich variety of web-like configurations and the fractal-like Soneira-Peebles models exemplify a range of multiscale configurations. We have identified the clear imprint of cluster nodes, filaments, walls, and voids in persistence diagrams, along with that of the nested hierarchy of structures in multiscale point distributions. We conclude by outlining the potential of persistent topology for understanding the connectivity structure of the cosmic web, in large simulations of cosmic structure formation and in the challenging context of the observed galaxy distribution in large galaxy surveys. AU - Pranav, Pratyush AU - Edelsbrunner, Herbert AU - Van De Weygaert, Rien AU - Vegter, Gert AU - Kerber, Michael AU - Jones, Bernard AU - Wintraecken, Mathijs ID - 1022 IS - 4 JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society SN - 00358711 TI - The topology of the cosmic web in terms of persistent Betti numbers VL - 465 ER -