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Computational Geometry
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Author: Mark De Berg, Marc Van Kreveld, Mark Overmars, Otfried Schwarzkopf, M. Van Kreveld
List Price: $44.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 3540656200
Publisher: Springer Verlag (18 February, 2000)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 20,824
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 4 out of 5
Good Introduction but look elsewhere for detailed reference
Pro:
(1) Each chapter begins with a practical example. For example, the chapter computing intersections of lines starts with a discussion of a map-making application that goes into enough detail to see how the algorithms they present would be useful. This is a considerable step up from the common practice in algorithms literature of motivation by way of vaguely mentioning some related field (i.e. "These string matching algorithms are useful in computational biology"). This book does a much better job of motivating the material it presents, but if you're primarily interested in the abstract problem, these sections can be skipped.(2) Each chapter is relatively self-contained. Feel free to skip ahead to subjects that interest you. (3) Surprisingly readable. Unlike most technical material, one can read an entire chapter in a single sitting without missing much. Generally, each chapter will develop a single algorithm for a single kind of problem. (4) It's very up to date. This second edition is less than two years old, it includes some new results in the field. Con:
(1) Algorithms are only given in pseudocode. The emphasis is on describing algorithms and data structures clearly and completely. If you're looking for a "cookbook" with code to copy and paste into an application, perhaps O'Rourke's "Computational Geometry in C" would be a better choice. (2) There are many important advanced results that are not discussed in the main text. An obvious example is the first chapter, which describes a well-known convex hull algorithm that takes O(n log n) time but algorithms that are faster for most inputs are mentioned only in the "Notes and Comments" at the end of the chapter. Someone interested in lots of gory details would be well-served to combine this book with Boissonnat and Yvinec's more detailed and mathematical "Algorithmic Geometry".
Rating: 5 out of 5
Extremely well written
Algorithm books are often quite hard to understand, but this is not the case with this book. The information is very compact so it is a slow read but due to the high quality of the text this is only an advantage. You are never left wondering what the authors might have meant with a certain statement.The book focuses solely on theory, so it presents no real source code (only pseudo-code) which I think is good thing since that would otherwise have polluted the clarity of the explanations. Many of the topics it covers has been a help to me as a programmer. Can be recommended for anyone interested in computation geometry - but it requires some computer science maturity so I don't recommend it unless you have a bachelor's degree in C.S. or something similar. Jacob Marner, M.Sc.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Interesting read, excellent theory, no code
This book serves as a survey of computational geometry algorithms. The explanations are very readable. The authors have taken special care to prove algorithm correctness and time complexity bounds.Although I have yet to actually implement one of the algorithms in the book directly, I was exposed to a number of general techniques which I have used, such as randomized techniques to eliminate pathological worst-case performance problems, and various space partitioning techniques. The algorithms are all presented in pseudocode, unfortunately, which is the reason for only 4 out of 5 stars. Also, some important details are omitted which make a few of their algorithms practically useless (although they are interesting theoritically). For example, there is an algorithm for pathfinding and collision avoidance for a translating (but not ROTATING!) robot. If you're lookin for a computational geometry bible, this isn't it. But there are certainly some gems in this book and it is a very interesting read.
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