Generalized Voronoi Diagram: A Geometry-Based Approach to Computational Intelligence

The year 2008 is a memorial year for Georgiy Voronoi (1868 -1908), with a number of events in the scientific community commemorating his tremendous contribution to the area of mathematics, especially number theory, through conferences and scientific gatherings in his honor. A notable event taking place in September 2008 a joint conference: the 5th Annual International Symposium on Voronoi Diagrams (ISVD) and the 4th International Conference on Analytic Number Theory and Spatial Tessellations held in Kyiv, Georgiy Voronoi’s native land. The main ideas expressed by G. Voronoi’s through his fundamental works have influenced and shaped the key developments in computation geometry, image recognition, artificial intelligence, robotics, computational science, navigation and obstacle avoidance, geographical information systems, molecular modeling, astrology, physics, quantum computing, chemical engineering, material sciences, terrain modeling, biometrics and other domains.

This book is intended to provide the reader with in-depth overview and analysis of the fundamental methods and techniques developed following G. Voronoi ideas, in the context of the vast and increasingly growing area of computational intelligence. It represents the collection of state-of-the art research methods merging the bridges between two areas: geometric computing through Voronoi diagrams and intelligent computation techniques, pushing the limits of current knowledge in the area, improving on previous solutions, merging sciences together, and inventing new ways of approaching difficult applied problems. Some chapters of the book were invited following the successful 3rd Annual International Symposium on Voronoi Diagrams (ISVD’06), that took place in Banff, Canada, in June 2006. Some others are direct submissions by leading international experts in the prospective areas.