posdamer@wucs2.UUCP (Jeff Posdamer) (04/04/88)
THIS IS NOT A FLAME !!!!!!
We have had, over the last few months, questions in computational geometry.
(Point in polygon, line (ray ?) triangle intersection, smallest enclosing
circle, etc.). These are topics normally covered in a Computational
Geometry course or book. The answers to these questions often:
1. Are easy to state/explain but difficult to actually implement
2. Are, in many cases, non-obvious, non-intuitive
3. Exist in the computational geometry literature which is quite seperate
from the computer graphics literature.
In any case, three issues must be dealt with: correctness/completeness,
feasibility (has it actually been successfully implemented) and
optimality (formal algorithmic and actual performance analysis).
PLEASE, feel free to ask ANY question; many simple questions have
non-obvious, elegant solutions (e.g. point in polygon). However,
if you are not sure of the solution ("Obviously..., it seems to me...")
control your desire to give a hypothetical or intuitive answer. What makes
geometric computing so interesting is that obvious answers are often
incomplete or just plain wrong.
If you are interested in computational geometry try, Preparata and Shamos,
Computational Geometry, Springer Verlag. There are several other books,
conference proceedings and articles.
Jeff Posdamer
posdamer@wucs2.wustl.edu
--
Jeff Posdamer, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, (314) 889-6147
posdamer@syr.wustl.edu