The size of spanning disks for polygonal curves

DOI10.1007/S00454-002-2707-6MaRDI QIDQ1864124zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Joel R. Hass, William P. Thurston, Jack Snoeyink

Publication date 17 March 2003

Published in Discrete \& Computational Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9906197

zbMATH Keywords

Morse theoryinvariant train trackspanning disk

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Differential topology (57R99) General low-dimensional topology (57M99) PL-topology (57Q99) Smooth approximations in differential topology (57R12)

Abstract: Let $K$ be a closed polygonal curve in $R{R}^3$ consisting of $n$ line segments. Assume that $K$ is unknotted, so that it is the boundary of an embedded disk in $R{R}^3$. This paper considers the question: How many triangles are needed to triangulate a Piecewise-Linear (PL) spanning disk of $K$? The main result exhibits a family of unknotted polygons with $n$ edges, $noinfty$, such that the minimal number of triangles needed in any triangulated spanning disk grows exponentially with $n$. For each integer $nge0$, there is a closed, unknotted, polygonal curve $K_n$ in $R^3$ having less than $10n+9$ edges, with the property that any Piecewise-Linear triangulated disk spanning the curve contains at least $2^{n-1}$ triangles.

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