Efficient Fréchet distance queries for segments
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We study the problem of constructing a data structure that can store a two-dimensional polygonal curve P, such that for any query segment ab one can efficiently compute the Fréchet distance between P and ab. First we present a data structure of size O(n log n) that can compute the Fréchet distance between P and a horizontal query segment ab in O(log n) time, where n is the number of vertices of P. In comparison to prior work, this significantly reduces the required space. We extend the type of queries allowed, as we allow a query to be a horizontal segment ab together with two points s, t ∈ P (not necessarily vertices), and ask for the Fréchet distance between ab and the curve of P in between s and t. Using O(nlog^2n) storage, such queries take O(log^3 n) time, simplifying and significantly improving previous results. We then generalize our results to query segments of arbitrary orientation. We present an O(nk^3+ε+n^2) size data structure, where k ∈ [1..n] is a parameter the user can choose, and ε > 0 is an arbitrarily small constant, such that given any segment ab and two points s, t ∈ P we can compute the Fréchet distance between ab and the curve of P in between s and t in O((n/k)log^2n+log^4 n) time. This is the first result that allows efficient exact Fréchet distance queries for arbitrarily oriented segments. We also present two applications of our data structure: we show that we can compute a local δ-simplification (with respect to the Fréchet distance) of a polygonal curve in O(n^5/2+ε) time, and that we can efficiently find a translation of an arbitrary query segment ab that minimizes the Fréchet distance with respect to a subcurve of P.
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