Spatial Data Structures — The Extension from One to Two Dimensions

The field of Computing Science has, for some years, developed considerable expertise in solving problems based on one-dimensional linked lists: these form the basis for many searching, sorting, graph and tree procedures. Graphs, based on individual edge-links, have been used extensively to describe two-dimensional polygon information, as a collection of nodes, arcs and regions. Once created, these are readily traversed by standard methods. Creation of these and similar structures from co-ordinate information is, however, still a problem.