Size analysis of nearly regular Delaunay triangulations

Abstract

Consider a nearly regular point pattern in which a Delaunay triangulation is comprised of nearly equilateral triangles of the same size. We propose to model this set of points with Gaussian perturbations about a regular mean configuration. By investigating triangle subsets in detail we obtain various distributions of statistics based on size, or squared size of the triangles which is closely related to the mean (squared) distance to the six nearest neighbors. A scaleless test statistic, corresponding to a coefficient of variation for squared sizes, is proposed and its asymptotic properties described. The methodology is applied to an investigation of regularity in human muscle fiber cross-sections. We compare the approach with an alternative technique in a power study.