Abstract Updating an abstract Voronoi diagram in linear time, after deletion of one site, has been an open problem in a long time; similarly, for any concrete Voronoi diagram of generalized (non-point) sites. In this paper we present a simple, expected linear-time algorithm to update an abstract Voronoi diagram after deletion of one site. To achieve this result, we use the concept of a Voronoi-like diagram, a relaxed Voronoi structure of independent interest. Voronoi-like diagrams serve as intermediate structures, which are considerably simpler to compute, thus, making an expected linear-time construction possible. We formalize the concept and prove that it is robust under insertion, therefore, enabling its use in incremental constructions. The time-complexity analysis introduces a variant to backwards analysis, which is applicable to order-dependent structures. We further extend the technique to compute in expected linear time: the order- $$(k\,{+}\,1)$$ ( k + 1 ) subdivision within an order-k Voronoi region, and the farthest abstract Voronoi diagram, after the order of its regions at infinity is known.

Given a set A of n points in ℝ^d with weight function w: A→ℝ_{> 0}, the Fermat distance function is φ(x): = ∑_{a∈A}w(a)‖x-a‖. A classic problem in facility location dating back to 1643, is to find the Fermat point x*, the point that minimizes the function φ. We consider the problem of computing a point x̃* that is an ε-approximation of x* in the sense that ‖x̃*-x*‖<ε. The algorithmic literature has so far used a different notion based on ε-approximation of the value φ(x*). We devise a certified subdivision algorithm for computing x̃*, enhanced by Newton operator techniques. We also revisit the classic Weiszfeld-Kuhn iteration scheme for x*, turning it into an ε-approximate Fermat point algorithm. Our second problem is the certified construction of ε-isotopic approximations of n-ellipses. These are the level sets φ^{-1}(r) for r > φ(x*) and d = 2. Finally, all our planar (d = 2) algorithms are implemented in order to experimentally evaluate them, using both synthetic as well as real world datasets. These experiments show the practicality of our techniques.

Updating an abstract Voronoi diagram in linear time, after deletion of one site, has been an open problem for a long time. Similarly for various concrete Voronoi diagrams of generalized sites, other than points. In this paper we present a simple, expected linear-time algorithm to update an abstract Voronoi diagram after deletion. We introduce the concept of a Voronoi-like diagram, a relaxed version of a Voronoi construct that has a structure similar to an abstract Voronoi diagram, without however being one. Voronoi-like diagrams serve as intermediate structures, which are considerably simpler to compute, thus, making an expected linear-time construction possible. We formalize the concept and prove that it is robust under an insertion operation, thus, enabling its use in incremental constructions.