DBSCAN in domains with periodic boundary conditions

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: de Wit, Xander M., Gabbana, Alessandro
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author de Wit, Xander M.
Gabbana, Alessandro
author_facet de Wit, Xander M.
Gabbana, Alessandro
contents Many scientific problems involve data that is embedded in a space with periodic boundary conditions. This can for instance be related to an inherent cyclic or rotational symmetry in the data or a spatially extended periodicity. When analyzing such data, well-tailored methods are needed to obtain efficient approaches that obey the periodic boundary conditions of the problem. In this work, we present a method for applying a clustering algorithm to data embedded in a periodic domain based on the DBSCAN algorithm, a widely used unsupervised machine learning method that identifies clusters in data. The proposed method internally leverages the conventional DBSCAN algorithm for domains with open boundaries, such that it remains compatible with all optimized implementations for neighborhood searches in open domains. In this way, it retains the same optimized runtime complexity of $O(N\log N)$. We demonstrate the workings of the proposed method using synthetic data in one, two and three dimensions and also apply it to a real-world example involving the clustering of bubbles in a turbulent flow. The proposed approach is implemented in a ready-to-use Python package that we make publicly available.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_16894
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle DBSCAN in domains with periodic boundary conditions
de Wit, Xander M.
Gabbana, Alessandro
Machine Learning
Computational Physics
Fluid Dynamics
Many scientific problems involve data that is embedded in a space with periodic boundary conditions. This can for instance be related to an inherent cyclic or rotational symmetry in the data or a spatially extended periodicity. When analyzing such data, well-tailored methods are needed to obtain efficient approaches that obey the periodic boundary conditions of the problem. In this work, we present a method for applying a clustering algorithm to data embedded in a periodic domain based on the DBSCAN algorithm, a widely used unsupervised machine learning method that identifies clusters in data. The proposed method internally leverages the conventional DBSCAN algorithm for domains with open boundaries, such that it remains compatible with all optimized implementations for neighborhood searches in open domains. In this way, it retains the same optimized runtime complexity of $O(N\log N)$. We demonstrate the workings of the proposed method using synthetic data in one, two and three dimensions and also apply it to a real-world example involving the clustering of bubbles in a turbulent flow. The proposed approach is implemented in a ready-to-use Python package that we make publicly available.
title DBSCAN in domains with periodic boundary conditions
topic Machine Learning
Computational Physics
Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16894