Title: Searching edges in the overlap of two plane graphs,
Abstract: Consider a pair of plane straight-line graphs, whose edges are colored red
and blue, respectively, and let n be the total complexity of both graphs. We
present a O(n log n)-time O(n)-space technique to preprocess such pair of
graphs, that enables efficient searches among the red-blue intersections along
edges of one of the graphs. Our technique has a number of applications to
geometric problems. This includes: (1) a solution to the batched red-blue
search problem [Dehne et al. 2006] in O(n log n) queries to the oracle; (2) an
algorithm to compute the maximum vertical distance between a pair of 3D
polyhedral terrains one of which is convex in O(n log n) time, where n is the
total complexity of both terrains; (3) an algorithm to construct the Hausdorff
Voronoi diagram of a family of point clusters in the plane in O((n+m) log^3 n)
time and O(n+m) space, where n is the total number of points in all clusters
and m is the number of crossings between all clusters; (4) an algorithm to
construct the farthest-color Voronoi diagram of the corners of n axis-aligned
rectangles in O(n log^2 n) time; (5) an algorithm to solve the stabbing circle
problem for n parallel line segments in the plane in optimal O(n log n) time.
All these results are new or improve on the best known algorithms.