Approximating geodesic distances on 2-manifolds in image \(\mathbb R^3\) (Q390105)

The geodesic distance between two points \(p\) and \(q\) of a connected set \(X\) is the length of the shortest path(s) linking this two points. In general, the geodesic distance is denoted by \(d_{X}(p,q)\). In this paper, the authors present an algorithm which approximates geodesic distances between points sampled from a 2 manifold in \(\mathbb{R}^{3}\) such that the approximation error is multiplicative. They use technics from computational geometry such as the Delaunay tetrahedrization and also they use Schreiber's optimal algorithm to compute exact geodesic distances. The paper contains important results and can be considered as a linking bridge between Riemannian geometry and computational geometry.