Rigid Motions on Discrete Spaces

Author(s): K. Pluta

Abstract: In digital geometry, Euclidean objects are represented by their discrete approximations, e.g. subsets of the lattice of integers. Rigid motions of such sets have to be defined as maps from and onto a given discrete space. One way to design such motions is to combine continuous rigid motions defined on Euclidean space with a digitization operator. However, digitized rigid motions often no longer satisfy properties of their continuous siblings. Indeed, due to digitization, such transformations do not preserve distances, while bijectivity and point connectivity are generally lost. In the context of 2D discrete spaces, we study digitized rigid motions on the lattices of Gaussian and Eisenstein integers. We characterize bijective digitized rigid motions on the integer lattice, and bijective digitized rotations on the regular hexagonal lattice. Also, we compare the information loss induced by non-bijective digitized rigid motions defined on both lattices. Yet, for practical applications, the relevant information is not global bijectivity, but bijectivity of a digitized rigid motion restricted to a given finite subset of a lattice. We propose two algorithms testing that condition for subsets of the integer lattice, and a third algorithm providing optimal angle intervals that preserve this restricted bijectivity. We then focus on digitized rigid motions on the 3D integer lattice. First, we study at a local scale geometric and topological defects induced by digitized rigid motions. Such an analysis consists of generating all the images of a finite digital set under digitized rigid motions. This problem amounts to computing an arrangement of hypersurfaces in a 6D parameter space. The dimensionality and degenerate cases make the problem practically unsolvable for state-of-the-art techniques. We propose an ad hoc solution, which mainly relies on parameter uncoupling, and an algorithm for computing sample points of 3D connected components in an arrangement of second degree polynomials. Finally, we focus on the open problem of determining whether a 3D digitized rotation is bijective. In our approach, we explore arithmetic properties of Lipschitz quaternions. This leads to an algorithm which answers whether a given digitized rotation—related to a Lipschitz quaternion—is bijective.

File: TEL public repository