On the Exponential Growth of Geometric Shapes

TL;DR

This paper investigates exponential growth of geometric shapes starting from a single node, analyzing how shape complexity affects growth time under various models and providing algorithms for fast shape expansion.

Contribution

It introduces models and algorithms for exponentially fast growth of geometric shapes, considering parameters like turning points and adjacency rules, with proven bounds and universal methods.

Findings

Shapes with $O(k)$ turning points can be grown in $O(k ext{log} n)$ time

Spirals with $O( ext{log} n)$ turning points grow in $O( ext{log} n)$ time

Universal algorithm achieves exponential growth for any shape in the strongest model

Abstract

In this paper, we explore how geometric structures can be grown exponentially fast. The studied processes start from an initial shape and apply a sequence of centralized growth operations to grow other shapes. We focus on the case where the initial shape is just a single node. A technical challenge in growing shapes that fast is the need to avoid collisions caused when the shape breaks, stretches, or self-intersects. We identify a parameter $k$, representing the number of turning points within specific parts of a shape. We prove that, if edges can only be formed when generating new nodes and cannot be deleted, trees having $O(k)$ turning points on every root-to-leaf path can be grown in $O(k\log n)$ time steps and spirals with $O(\log n)$ turning points can be grown in $O(\log n)$ time steps, $n$ being the size of the final shape. For this case, we also show that the maximum number of turning points in a root-to-leaf path of a tree is a lower bound on the number of time steps to grow the tree and that there exists a class of paths such that any path in the class with $\Omega(k)$ turning points requires $\Omega(k\log k)$ time steps to be grown. If nodes can additionally be connected as soon as they become adjacent, we prove that if a shape $S$ has a spanning tree with $O(k)$ turning points on every root-to-leaf path, then the adjacency closure of $S$ can be grown in $O(k \log n)$ time steps. In the strongest model that we study, where edges can be deleted and neighbors can be handed over to newly generated nodes, we obtain a universal algorithm: for any shape $S$ it gives a process that grows $S$ from a single node exponentially fast.