TY - GEN
T1 - Computational geometry
T2 - 26th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 1994
AU - Chazelle, Bernard
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 1994 ACM.
PY - 1994/5/23
Y1 - 1994/5/23
N2 - Computational geometry is at a crossroads. New challenges and opportunities are likely to reshape the field rather drastically in the years ahead. I will survey some of its principal accomplishments, and in light of recent developments, I will discuss the profound transformations the field has begun to undergo. There are reasons to believe that computational geometry will emerge from this transition far richer and stronger but barely recognizable from what it was ten years ago. Over the last two decades the field has enjoyed tremendous successes. Some of them might be dismissed as the cheap payoffs to be expected from any field lacking maturity. But others are the products of indisputable creativity and should be held as genuirle scientific achievements. More important, the field is now able to claim a broad, solid foundation upon which its future can be securely built. To mature fully as an original subfield of computer science, however, computational geometry must broaden its connections to applied mathematics while at the same time pay more than lip service to the applications areas that it purports to serve. Happily, active efforts to meet these challenges are underway. Three recent developments are particular encouraging: one is the building of a theory of geometric sampiing and its revolutionary impact on the design of geometric algorithms. Another is the maturing of computational real-Algebraic geometry and computational topology both subjects are being revitalized by the introduction of geometric (as opposed to purely algebraic) methods. On the practical end of the spectrum, the emergence of a sub-Area concerned specifically with issues of finite precision and degeneracy in geometric computing is a most welcome development.
AB - Computational geometry is at a crossroads. New challenges and opportunities are likely to reshape the field rather drastically in the years ahead. I will survey some of its principal accomplishments, and in light of recent developments, I will discuss the profound transformations the field has begun to undergo. There are reasons to believe that computational geometry will emerge from this transition far richer and stronger but barely recognizable from what it was ten years ago. Over the last two decades the field has enjoyed tremendous successes. Some of them might be dismissed as the cheap payoffs to be expected from any field lacking maturity. But others are the products of indisputable creativity and should be held as genuirle scientific achievements. More important, the field is now able to claim a broad, solid foundation upon which its future can be securely built. To mature fully as an original subfield of computer science, however, computational geometry must broaden its connections to applied mathematics while at the same time pay more than lip service to the applications areas that it purports to serve. Happily, active efforts to meet these challenges are underway. Three recent developments are particular encouraging: one is the building of a theory of geometric sampiing and its revolutionary impact on the design of geometric algorithms. Another is the maturing of computational real-Algebraic geometry and computational topology both subjects are being revitalized by the introduction of geometric (as opposed to purely algebraic) methods. On the practical end of the spectrum, the emergence of a sub-Area concerned specifically with issues of finite precision and degeneracy in geometric computing is a most welcome development.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0027929096&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0027929096&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/195058.195110
DO - 10.1145/195058.195110
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:0027929096
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing
SP - 75
EP - 94
BT - Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC 1994
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 23 May 1994 through 25 May 1994
ER -