An External Memory Algorithm for the Minimum Enclosing Ball Problem

L. Källberg, E. Shellshear, T. Larsson. In Proceedings of the 11th Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, ISBN 978-989-758-175-5, pages 81-88, Rome, Italy, 27-29 February, 2016.

Abstract

In this article we present an external memory algorithm for computing the exact minimum enclosing ball of a massive set of points in any dimension. We test the performance of the algorithm on real-life three-dimensional data sets and demonstrate for the first time the practical efficiency of exact out-of-core algorithms. By use of simple heuristics, we achieve near-optimal I/O in all our test cases.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Linus Källberg, Mälardalen University, Sweden
  • Evan Shellshear, Fraunhofer Chalmers Centre, Sweden
  • Thomas Larsson, Mälardalen University, Sweden



Photo credits: Nic McPhee