Edge-unfolding almost-flat convex polyhedral terrains

In this thesis we consider the centuries-old question of edge-unfolding convex polyhedra, focusing specifically on edge-unfoldability of convex polyhedral terrain which are "almost at" in that they have very small height. We demonstrate how to determine whether cut-trees of such almost-at terrains unfold and prove that, in this context, any partial cut-tree which unfolds without overlap and "opens" at a root edge can be locally extended by a neighboring edge of this root edge. We show that, for certain (but not all) planar graphs G, there are cut-trees which unfold for all almost-at terrains whose planar projection is G. We also demonstrate a non-cut-tree-based method of unfolding which relies on "slice" operations to build an unfolding of a complicated terrain from a known unfolding of a simpler terrain. Finally, we describe several heuristics for generating cut-forests and provide some computational results of such heuristics on unfolding almost-at convex polyhedral terrains.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Yanping, M. Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Erik Demaine.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/84729

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/84729