On the convex layers of a planer dynamic set of points

Abstract

The convex hull of a planer set of points can be defined as the set of vertices of the smallest convex polygon containing all the points. If S is a planer set of points then convex layers of S can be derived by iteratively computing the convex hull of S and then removing it from S. Computation of the convex layers has widely been studied in the static environment where the set of points is fixed. The theoretical lower bound of computing the convex layers of a fixed set of points is O (n log n). The static convex layers algorithms with the optimal time complexity have already been proposed in the literature. A set of points where the points can be inserted or deleted is called a dynamic set of points. The set of convex layers should be reconstructed from the scratch at each insertion or deletion if a static convex layers algorithm was used to handle a dynamic set of points. Therefore, it takes O (n log n) time to handle an insertion or a deletion even for an optimal static convex layers algorithm. A dynamic convex layers algorithm has been proposed recently that can perform an insertion or a deletion by doing a slight modification to the existing set of convex layers. It takes O (n) time for an insertion or a deletion. It assumes that the set of points does not contain collinear points and that assumption is not valid in practical applications. Furthermore, the notion of tangent used in that approach restricts the extension of the algorithm into higher dimensions. This paper proposes a novel dynamic convex layers algorithm to eliminate the drawbacks in the existing algorithm. Salient feature of this algorithm is that it represents each layer as a set of line segments. The layers are modified upon an insertion or a deletion of a point by adding some new line segments and deleting some existing line segments. The proposed algorithm takes O (n 3 /k 2 ) time for an insertion or a deletion where k is the number of convex layers. A computer implementation is also presented. The proposed algorithm can work with set of points with collinear points and coincident points. The notion used in the algorithm can easily be extended to higher dimensions. Suppose the set of convex layers have already been found for a given set of points. Further, suppose that the layers are close to each other and new points are expected to fall within the region bounded by the outermost layer. This kind of situations widely occurs in practice and then the proposed algorithm takes O (n) time for an inclusion or a deletion.