Skip to main content

Experiments on the practical I/O efficiency of geometric algorithms: Distribution sweep vs. plane sweep

Extended abstract

  • Invited Presentation
  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 955))

Abstract

We present an extensive experimental study comparing the performance of four algorithms for the orthogonal segment intersection problem. The algorithms under evaluation are distribution sweep, which has optimal I/O cost, and three variations of plane sweep, which is optimal in terms of internal computation. We generate the test data by using a random number generator while producing some interesting properties that are predicted by our theoretical analysis. The sizes of the test data range from 250 thousand segments to 2.5 million segments. The experiments provide detailed quantitative evaluation of the performance of the four algorithms. This is the first experimental work comparing the practical performance between external-memory algorithms and conventional algorithms with large-scale test data.

Research supported in part by the National Science Foundation, by the U.S. Army Research Office, and by the Office of Naval Research and the Advanced Research Projects Agency.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. A. Aggarwal and J. S. Vitter. The input/output complexity of sorting and related problems. Communications of the ACM, 31(9):1116–1127, 1988.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. L. Arge. The buffer tree: A new technique for optimal I/O-algorithms. In Proc. Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  3. L. Arge, D. E. Vengroff, and J. S. Vitter. External-memory algorithms for processing line segments in geographic information systems. Manuscript, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  4. R. Bayer and E. McCreight. Organization of large ordered indexes. Acta Inform., 1:173–189, 1972.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. P. Callahan, M. T. Goodrich, and K. Ramaiyer. Topology B-trees and their applications. In Proc. Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Y.-J. Chiang. Experiments on the practical I/O efficiency of geometric algorithms: Distribution sweep vs. plane sweep. Report CS-95-07, Comput. Sci. Dept., Brown Univ., 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Y.-J. Chiang, M. T. Goodrich, E. F. Grove, R. Tamassia, D. E. Vengroff, and J. S. Vitter. External-memory graph algorithms. In Proc. ACM-SIAM Symp. on Discrete Algorithms, pages 139–149, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  8. D. Comer. The ubiquitous B-tree. ACM Comput. Surv., 11:121–137, 1979.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. T. H. Cormen, C. E. Leiserson, and R. L. Rivest. Introduction to Algorithms. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  10. E. Feuerstein and A. Marchetti-Spaccamela. Memory paging for connectivity and path problems in graphs. In Proc. Int. Symp. on Algorithms and Comp., 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  11. P. G. Franciosa and M. Talamo. Orders, implicit k-sets representation and fast halfplane searching. In Proc. Workshop on Orders, Algorithms and Applications (ORDAL '94), pages 117–127, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  12. G. N. Frederickson. A data structure for dynamically maintaining rooted trees. In Proc. ACM-SIAM Symp. on Discrete Algorithms, pages 175–184, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  13. M. T. Goodrich, M. H. Nodine, and J. S. Vitter. Blocking for external graph searching. In Proc. ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symp. on Principles of Database Sys., pages 222–232, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  14. M. T. Goodrich, J.-J. Tsay, D. E. Vengroff, and J. S. Vitter. External-memory computational geometry. In IEEE Foundations of Comp. Sci., pages 714–723, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  15. P. C. Kanellakis, S. Ramaswamy, D. E. Vengroff, and J. S. Vitter. Indexing for data models with constraints and classes. In Proc. ACM Symp. on Principles of Database Sys., pages 233–243, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  16. C. M. Kenyon-Mathieu and J. S. Vitter. The maximum size of dynamic data structures. SIAM J. Comput, 20:807–823, 1991.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. M. H. Nodine and J. S. Vitter. Paradigms for optimal sorting with multiple disks. In Proc. of the 26th Hawaii Int. Conf. on Systems Sciences, January 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  18. F. P. Preparata and M. I. Shamos. Computational Geometry: an Introduction. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  19. S. Ramaswamy and S. Subramanian. Path caching: A technique for optimal external searching. In Proc. ACM Symp. on Principles of Database Sys., pages 25–35, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  20. S. Subramanian and S. Ramaswamy. The P-range tree: A new data structure for range searching in secondary memory. In Proc. ACM-SIAM Symp. on Discrete Algorithms, pages 378–387, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  21. J. D. Ullman and M. Yannakakis. The input/output complexity of transitive closure. Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intellegence, 3:331–360, 1991.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. D. E. Vengroff. A transparent parallel I/O environment. In Proc. 1994 DAGS Symposium on Parallel Computation, July 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  23. D. E. Vengroff and J. S. Vitter. I/O-efficient scientific computation using TPIE. Manuscript, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  24. J. S. Vitter and E. A. M. Shriver. Algorithms for parallel memory I: Two-level memories. Algorithmica, 12(2), 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  25. B. Zhu. Further computational geometry in secondary memory. In Proc. Int. Symp. on Algorithms and Computation, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Selim G. Akl Frank Dehne Jörg-Rüdiger Sack Nicola Santoro

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Chiang, YJ. (1995). Experiments on the practical I/O efficiency of geometric algorithms: Distribution sweep vs. plane sweep. In: Akl, S.G., Dehne, F., Sack, JR., Santoro, N. (eds) Algorithms and Data Structures. WADS 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 955. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60220-8_75

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60220-8_75

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-60220-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44747-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics