LEDA provides a collection of simple data types for computational geometry, such as points, vectors, directions, hyperplanes, segments, rays, lines, affine transformations, circles, polygons, and operations connecting these types.
The computational geometry kernel has evolved over time. The first kernel
(types point, line, ...) was restricted to two-dimensional
geometry and used floating point arithmetic as the underlying arithmetic. We
found it very difficult to implement reliable geometric algorithms based on
this kernel. See the chapter on computational geometry of [66] for
some examples of the danger of floating point arithmetic in geometric
computations. Starting with version 3.2 we therefore also provided a kernel
based on exact rational arithmetic (types
rat_point, rat_segment ...).
(This kernel is still restricted to two dimensions.)
From version 4.5 on we offer a two-dimensional kernel based on the type
real, which also guarantees exact results. The corresponding data types
are named real_point, real_segment, ...
All two-dimensional object types defined in this section support the following operations:
Equality and Identity Tests
| bool | identical(object p, object q) | Test for identity. |
| bool | p = = q | Test for equality. |
| bool | p! = q | Test for inequality. |
I/O Operators
| ostream& | ostream& O < < object x | writes the object x to output stream O. |
| istream& | istream& I > > object& x | reads an object from input stream I into variable x. |