Given a set @math of @math points in the plane, we study the computation of the probability distribution function of both the area and perimeter of the convex hull of a random subset @math of @math . The random subset @math is formed by drawing each point @math of @math independently with a given rational probability @math . For both measures of the convex hull, we show that it is #P-hard to compute the probability that the measure is at least a given bound @math . For @math , we provide an algorithm that runs in @math time and returns a value that is between the probability that the area is at least @math , and the probability that the area is at least @math . For the perimeter, we show a similar algorithm running in @math time. Finally, given @math and for any measure, we show an @math -time Monte Carlo algorithm that returns a value that, with probability of success at least @math , differs at most @math from the probability that the measure is at least @math .
In a more general model of discrete probabilistic points (called multipoint model @cite_0 ), each of the @math points either does not occur or occurs at one of finitely many locations, following its own discrete probability distribution. In this model that generalizes the one considered in this paper, @cite_0 gave exact computations and approximations of the probability that a query point lies in the convex hull, and @cite_12 considered the minimum enclosing ball problem and gave a @math -approximation. In this more general model and other ones, @cite_10 studied approximations of the distribution functions of the solutions of geometric shape-fitting problems, and described the variation of the solutions to these problems with respect to the uncertainty of the points. They noted that in the multipoint model the distribution of area or perimeter of the convex hull may have exponential complexity if all the points lie on or near a circle.
@cite_0 @cite_10 @cite_12
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Consider a set of points in d dimensions where the existence or the location of each point is determined by a probability distribution. The convex hull of this set is a random variable distributed over exponentially many choices. We are interested in finding the most likely convex hull, namely, the one with the maximum probability of occurrence. We investigate this problem under two natural models of uncertainty: the point (also called the tuple) model where each point (site) has a fixed position s i but only exists with some probability π i , for 0 < π i ≤ 1, and the multipoint model where each point has multiple possible locations or it may not appear at all. We show that the most likely hull under the point model can be computed in O(n 3) time for n points in d = 2 dimensions, but it is NP–hard for d ≥ 3 dimensions. On the other hand, we show that the problem is NP–hard under the multipoint model even for d = 2 dimensions. We also present hardness results for approximating the probability of the most likely hull. While we focus on the most likely hull for concreteness, our results hold for other natural definitions of a probabilistic hull. We study the convex-hull problem in a probabilistic setting, motivated by the need to handle data uncertainty inherent in many applications, including sensor databases, location-based services and computer vision. In our framework, the uncertainty of each input point is described by a probability distribution over a finite number of possible locations including a null location to account for non-existence of the point. Our results include both exact and approximation algorithms for computing the probability of a query point lying inside the convex hull of the input, time–space tradeoffs for the membership queries, a connection between Tukey depth and membership queries, as well as a new notion of ( )-hull that may be a useful representation of uncertain hulls. We study the convex-hull problem in a probabilistic setting, motivated by the need to handle data uncertainty inherent in many applications, including sensor databases, location-based services and computer vision. In our framework, the uncertainty of each input site is described by a probability distribution over a finite number of possible locations including a location to account for non-existence of the point. Our results include both exact and approximation algorithms for computing the probability of a query point lying inside the convex hull of the input, time-space tradeoffs for the membership queries, a connection between Tukey depth and membership queries, as well as a new notion of @math -hull that may be a useful representation of uncertain hulls. We describe an @math -time algorithm for computing the exact probability that two @math -dimensional probabilistic point sets are linearly separable, for any fixed @math . A probabilistic point in @math -space is a normal point, but with an associated probability of existence; the existence probabilities of all points are independent. We also show that the @math -dimensional separability problem is equivalent to a @math -dimensional convex hull membership problem, which asks for the probability that a query point lies inside the convex hull of @math probabilistic points. Using this reduction, we improve the current best bound for the convex hull membership problem by a factor of @math . In addition, our algorithms can handle input degeneracies in which more than @math points may lie on a @math -dimensional subspace, thus resolving an open problem in 2013. Finally, we prove lower bounds for the separability problem via a reduction from the @math -SUM problem, which show in particular that our @math algorithms for @math -dimensional separability and @math -dimensional convex hull membership are nearly optimal.