Section: Overall Objectives

Overall Objectives

Geometric computing plays a central role in most engineering activities: geometric modelling, computer aided design and manufacturing, computer graphics and virtual reality, scientific visualization, geographic information systems, molecular biology, fluid mechanics, and robotics are just a few well-known examples. The rapid advances in visualization systems, networking facilities and 3D sensing and imaging make geometric computing both dominant and more demanding concerning effective algorithmic solutions.

Computational geometry emerged as a discipline in the seventies and has met with considerable success in resolving the asymptotic complexity of basic geometric problems including data structures, convex hulls, triangulations, Voronoi diagrams, geometric arrangements and geometric optimization. However, in the mid-nineties, it was recognized that the applicability in practice of computational geometry techniques was far from satisfactory and a vigorous effort has been undertaken to make computational geometry more effective. The prisme project together with several partners in Europe took a prominent role in this research and in the development of a large library of computational geometry algorithms, cgal .

Geometrica aims at pursuing further the effort in this direction and at building upon the initial success. Its focus is on effective computational geometry with special emphasis on curves and surfaces . This is a challenging research area with a huge number of potential applications in almost all application domains involving geometric computing.

The overall objective of the project is to give effective computational geometry for curves and surfaces solid mathematical and algorithmic foundations, to provide solutions to key problems and to validate our theoretical advances through extensive experimental research and the development of software packages that could serve as steps towards a standard for safe and effective geometric computing.