The Computational Geometry Course was created and taught for the first time at Georgia Tech in 1998 by Jarek Rossignac and Leo Schulman.
It is currently taught by Andrzej Szymcczak.
MOTIVATION
Many software applications involve challenging problems of high complexity for which naive solutions require prohibitive amounts of time or space. Many of these problems may be cast in a geometric framework. Engineering, manufacturing, architecture, medicine, scientific visualization, electronic commerce, and entertainment applications manipulate vast numbers of geometric entities. Other problems, such as network optimization, often also benefit from a geometric approach.
This Computational Geometry course will provide you with tools that will help you to develop efficient algorithmic solutions to complex problems; and it will provide experience in problem solving and in collaborative work.
COURSE CONTENT
The course will cover topics from the following list: geometric representations and their construction; linear programming; geometric arrangements; polygon triangulation; Voronoi diagrams and Delaunay triangulations; convex hulls; visibility and motion planning; binary space partitions; octrees and other auxiliary datastructures for efficient back-to-front sorting, probing, and other geometric queries. Applications in Computer-Aided Design, Computer Graphics, Vision, and Robotics will be discussed.
Students will be asked to participate in a fair amount of individual and collaborative problem solving and in team projects involving the collaborative implementation and visualization of various geometric algorithms.
PREREQUISITES
Prior experience in algorithms and datastructures, and a taste for games and problem solving.
TEXTBOOK
Computational Geometry - Algorithms and Applications, M. de Berg, M. van Kreveld, M. Overmars, O. Schwarzkopf. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg New York. 1997 (ISBN: 3-540-61270-X). A wonderful, clearly written, brand new book with lots of application examples and nice illustrations.