Approximation of the Normal Vector Field and the Area of a Smooth Surface

This paper deals with the comparison of the normal vector field of a smooth surface S with the normal vector field of another surface differentiable almost everywhere. The main result gives an upper bound on angles between the normals of S and the normals of a triangulation T close to S. This upper bound is expressed in terms of the geometry of T, the curvature of S and the Hausdorff distance between both surfaces. This kind of result is really useful: in particular, results of the approximation of the normal vector field of a smooth surface S can induce results of the approximation of the area; indeed, in a very general case (T is only supposed to be locally the graph of a lipschitz function), if we know the angle between the normals of both surfaces, then we can explicitly express the area of S in terms of geometrical invariants of T, the curvature of S and of the Hausdorff distance between both surfaces. We also apply our results in surface reconstruction: we obtain convergence results when T is the restricted Delaunay triangulation of an -sample of S; using Chews algorithm, we also build sequences of triangulations inscribed in S whose curvature measures tend to the curvatures measures of S.     

Lattice triangulations of $\mathbb{E}^3 $ and of the 3-torus

This paper gives answers to a few questions concerning tilings of Euclidean spaces where the tiles are topological simplices with curvilinear edges. We investigate lattice triangulations of Euclidean 3-space in the sense that the vertices form a lattice of rank 3 and such that the triangulation is invariant under all translations of that lattice. This is the dual concept of a primitive lattice tiling where the tiles are not assumed to be Euclidean polyhedra but only topological polyhedra. In 3-space there is a unique standard lattice triangulation by Euclidean tetrahedra (and with straight edges) but there are infinitely many non-standard lattice triangulations where the tetrahedra necessarily have certain curvilinear edges. From the view-point of Discrete Differential Geometry this tells us that there are such triangulations of 3-space which do not carry any flat discrete metric which is equivariant under the lattice. Furthermore, we investigate lattice triangulations of the 3-dimensional torus as quotients by a sublattice. The standard triangulation admits such quotients with any number n ≥ 15 of vertices. The unique one with 15 vertices is neighborly, i.e., any two vertices are joined by an edge. It turns out that for any odd n ≥ 17 there is an n-vertex neighborly triangulation of the 3-torus as a quotient of a certain non-standard lattice triangulation. Combinatorially, one can obtain these neighborly 3-tori as slight modifications of the boundary complexes of the cyclic 4-polytopes. As a kind of combinatorial surgery, this is an interesting construction by itself.     

Toughness and Delaunay triangulations

We show that nondegenerate Delaunay triangulations satisfy a combinatorial property called 1-toughness. A graphG is1-tough if for any setP of vertices,c(G–P)|G|, wherec(G–P) is the number of components of the graph obtained by removingP and all attached edges fromG, and |G| is the number of vertices inG. This property arises in the study of Hamiltonian graphs: all Hamiltonian graphs are 1-tough, but not conversely. We also show that all Delaunay triangulationsT satisfy the following closely related property: for any setP of vertices the number of interior components ofT–P is at most |P|–2, where an interior component ofT–P is a component that contains no boundary vertex ofT. These appear to be the first nontrivial properties of a purely combinatorial nature to be established for Delaunay triangulations. We give examples to show that these bounds are best possible and are independent of one another. We also characterize the conditions under which a degenerate Delaunay triangulation can fail to be 1-tough. This characterization leads to a proof that all graphs that can be realized as polytopes inscribed in a sphere are 1-tough. One consequence of the toughness results is that all Delaunay triangulations and all inscribable graphs have perfect matchings.This research was sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant IRI-88-02457.     

Flipping Edges in Triangulations

In this paper we study the problem of flipping edges in triangulations of polygons and point sets. One of the main results is that any triangulation of a set of n points in general position contains at least edges that can be flipped. We also prove that O(n + k ² ) flips are sufficient to transform any triangulation of an n -gon with k reflex vertices into any other triangulation. We produce examples of n -gons with triangulations T and T' such that to transform T into T' requires Ω(n ² ) flips. Finally we show that if a set of n points has k convex layers, then any triangulation of the point set can be transformed into any other triangulation using at most O(kn) flips. Received May 13, 1997, and in revised form July 21, 1998, and February 1, 1999.     

Largest 4-connected components of 3-connected planar triangulations

Let T_n be a 3-connected n-vertex planar triangulation chosen uniformly at random. Then the number of vertices in the largest 4-connected component of T_n is asymptotic to n/2 with probability tending to 1 as n → ∞. It follows that almost all 3-connected triangulations with n vertices have a cycle of length at least n/2 + o(n).     

Catalan Triangulations of the Möbius Band

A Catalan triangulation of the Möbius band is an abstract simplicial complex triangulating the Möbius band which uses no interior vertices, and has vertices labelled 1, 2, …, n in order as one traverses the boundary. We prove two results about the structure of this set, analogous to well-known results for Catalan triangulations of the disk. The first is a generating function for Catalan triangulations of M having n vertices, and the second is that any two such triangulations are connected by a sequence of diagonal-flips.     

Diagonal Flips in Labelled Planar Triangulations

 A classical result of Wagner states that any two (unlabelled) planar triangulations with the same number of vertices can be transformed into each other by a finite sequence of diagonal flips. Recently Komuro gives a linear bound on the maximum number of diagonal flips needed for such a transformation. In this paper we show that any two labelled triangulations can be transformed into each other using at most O(nlogn) diagonal flips. We will also show that any planar triangulation with n>4 vertices has at least n− 2 flippable edges. Finally, we prove that if the minimum degree of a triangulation is at least 4, then it contains at least 2n + 3 flippable edges. These bounds can be achieved by an infinite class of triangulations. Received: June 3, 1998 Final version received: January 26, 2001     

Simultaneous diagonal flips in plane triangulations

Simultaneous diagonal flips in plane triangulations are investigated. It is proved that every triangulation with n ≥ 6 vertices has a simultaneous flip into a 4‐connected triangulation, and that the set of edges to be flipped can be computed in (n) time. It follows that every triangulation has a simultaneous flip into a Hamiltonian triangulation. This result is used to prove that for any two n‐vertex triangulations, there exists a sequence of (logn) simultaneous flips to transform one into the other. Moreover, Ω(log n) simultaneous flips are needed for some pairs of triangulations. The total number of edges flipped in this sequence is (n). The maximum size of a simultaneous flip is then studied. It is proved that every triangulation has a simultaneous flip of at least edges. On the other hand, every simultaneous flip has at most n ? 2 edges, and there exist triangulations with a maximum simultaneous flip of edges. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 54: 307–330, 2007     

Computational Complexity of the Vertex Cover Problem in the Class of Planar Triangulations

We study the computational complexity of the vertex cover problem in the class of planar graphs (planar triangulations) admitting a plane representation whose faces are triangles. It is shown that the problem is strongly NP-hard in the class of 4-connected planar triangulations in which the degrees of vertices are of order O(log n), where n is the number of vertices, and in the class of plane 4-connected Delaunay triangulations based on the Minkowski triangular distance. A pair of vertices in such a triangulation is adjacent if and only if there is an equilateral triangle ?(p, λ) with p ∈ R² and λ > 0 whose interior does not contain triangulation vertices and whose boundary contains this pair of vertices and only it, where ?(p, λ) = p + λ? = {x ∈ R²: x = p + λa, a ∈ ?}; here ? is the equilateral triangle with unit sides such that its barycenter is the origin and one of the vertices belongs to the negative y-axis. Keywords: computational complexity, Delaunay triangulation, Delaunay TD-triangulation.     

Degree-regular triangulations of torus and Klein bottle

A triangulation of a connected closed surface is called weakly regular if the action of its automorphism group on its vertices is transitive. A triangulation of a connected closed surface is called degree-regular if each of its vertices have the same degree. Clearly, a weakly regular triangulation is degree-regular. In [8], Lutz has classified all the weakly regular triangulations on at most 15 vertices. In [5], Datta and Nilakantan have classified all the degree-regular triangulations of closed surfaces on at most 11 vertices. In this article, we have proved that any degree-regular triangulation of the torus is weakly regular. We have shown that there exists ann-vertex degree-regular triangulation of the Klein bottle if and only if n is a composite number ≥ 9. We have constructed two distinctn-vertex weakly regular triangulations of the torus for eachn ≥ 12 and a (4m + 2)-vertex weakly regular triangulation of the Klein bottle for eachm ≥ 2. For 12 ≤n ≤ 15, we have classified all then-vertex degree-regular triangulations of the torus and the Klein bottle. There are exactly 19 such triangulations, 12 of which are triangulations of the torus and remaining 7 are triangulations of the Klein bottle. Among the last 7, only one is weakly regular.     

Triangulation de Delaunay et Triangulation des Tores

We present a construction of triangulations of the torus \mathbbTⁿ{\mathbb{T}^n} with 2 ⁿ⁺¹−1 vertices, starting from the Delaunay triangulation of a generic lattices. The typical example is the Kühnel–Lassmann triangulation, with help of the lattice A^*_n{A^{*}_{n}} . Concerning this triangulation, we also prove a result of unicity for some values of n.     

On the number of Hamiltonian cycles in triangulations

It is proved that if a planar triangulation different from K₃ and K₄ contains a Hamiltonian cycle, then it contains at least four of them. Together with the result of Hakimi, Schmeichel, and Thomassen [2], this yields that, for n ? 12, the minimum number of Hamiltonian cycles in a Hamiltonian planar triangulation on n vertices is four. We also show that this theorem holds for triangulations of arbitrary surfaces and for 3-connected triangulated graphs.     

Optimal Delaunay Triangulations

The Delaunay triangulation, in both classic and more generalized sense, is studied in this paper for minimizing the linear interpolation error (measure in L^P-norm) for a given function. The classic Delaunay triangulation can then be characterized as an optimal triangulation that minimizes the interpolation error for the isotropic function ‖x‖^2 among all the triangulations with a given set of vertices. For a more general function, a functiondependent Delaunay triangulation is then defined to be an optimal triangulation that minimizes the interpolation error for this function and its construction can be obtained by a simple lifting and projection procedure. The optimal Delaunay triangulation is the one that minimizes the interpolation error among all triangulations with the same number of vertices, i.e. the distribution of vertices are optimized in order to minimize the interpolation error. Such a function-depend entoptimal Delaunay triangulation is proved to exist for any given convex continuous function.On an optimal Delaunay triangulation associated with f, it is proved that △↓f at the interior vertices can be exactly recovered by the function values on its neighboring vertices.Since the optimal Delaunay triangulation is difficult to obtain in practice, the concept of nearly optimal triangulation is introduced and two sufficient conditions are presented for a triangulation to be nearly optimal.     

Triangulations on Closed Surfaces Covered by Vertices of Given Degree

A triangulation of a closed surface is said to be d-covered if all of its edges are covered by vertices of degree d. We shall give constructive characterizations of 5- and 6-covered triangulations. Received: July 17, 1998?Final version received: January 12, 2000     

Minimal Simplicial Dissections and Triangulations of Convex 3-Polytopes

This paper addresses three questions related to minimal triangulations of a three-dimensional convex polytope P . • Can the minimal number of tetrahedra in a triangulation be decreased if one allows the use of interior points of P as vertices? • Can a dissection of P use fewer tetrahedra than a triangulation? • Does the size of a minimal triangulation depend on the geometric realization of P ? The main result of this paper is that all these questions have an affirmative answer. Even stronger, the gaps of size produced by allowing interior vertices or by using dissections may be linear in the number of points. Received August 16, 1999, and in revised form February 29, 2000. Online publication May 19, 2000.     

Inscribed Balls and Their Centers

A ball of maximal radius inscribed in a convex closed bounded set with a nonempty interior is considered in the class of uniformly convex Banach spaces. It is shown that, under certain conditions, the centers of inscribed balls form a uniformly continuous (as a set function) set-valued mapping in the Hausdorff metric. In a finite-dimensional space of dimension n, the set of centers of balls inscribed in polyhedra with a fixed collection of normals satisfies the Lipschitz condition with respect to sets in the Hausdorff metric. A Lipschitz continuous single-valued selector of the set of centers of balls inscribed in such polyhedra can be found by solving n + 1 linear programming problems.     

Three-pencil lattices on triangulations

In this paper, three-pencil lattices on triangulations are studied. The explicit representation of a lattice, based upon barycentric coordinates, enables us to construct lattice points in a simple and numerically stable way. Further, this representation carries over to triangulations in a natural way. The construction is based upon group action of S ₃ on triangle vertices, and it is shown that the number of degrees of freedom is equal to the number of vertices of the triangulation.      

Averaging of gradient in the space of linear triangular and bilinear rectangular finite elements

An averaging method for the second-order approximation of the values of the gradient of an arbitrary smooth function u = u(x ₁, x ₂) at the vertices of a regular triangulation T _h composed both of rectangles and triangles is presented. The method assumes that only the interpolant Π _h [u] of u in the finite element space of the linear triangular and bilinear rectangular finite elements from T _h is known. A complete analysis of this method is an extension of the complete analysis concerning the finite element spaces of linear triangular elements from [Dalík J., Averaging of directional derivatives in vertices of nonobtuse regular triangulations, Numer. Math., 2010, 116(4), 619–644]. The second-order approximation of the gradient is extended from the vertices to the whole domain and applied to the a posteriori error estimates of the finite element solutions of the planar elliptic boundary-value problems of second order. Numerical illustrations of the accuracy of the averaging method and of the quality of the a posteriori error estimates are also presented.     

Transversal structures on triangulations: A combinatorial study and straight-line drawings

This article focuses on a combinatorial structure specific to triangulated plane graphs with quadrangular outer face and no separating triangle, which are called irreducible triangulations. The structure has been introduced by Xin He under the name of regular edge-labelling and consists of two bipolar orientations that are transversal. For this reason, the terminology used here is that of transversal structures. The main results obtained in the article are a bijection between irreducible triangulations and ternary trees, and a straight-line drawing algorithm for irreducible triangulations. For a random irreducible triangulation with n vertices, the grid size of the drawing is asymptotically with high probability 11n/27×11n/27 up to an additive error of . In contrast, the best previously known algorithm for these triangulations only guarantees a grid size (⌈n/2⌉−1)×⌊n/2⌋.