Locally Correct Interleavings between Merge Trees

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Beurskens, Thijs, Ophelders, Tim, Speckmann, Bettina, Verbeek, Kevin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909968820600832
author Beurskens, Thijs
Ophelders, Tim
Speckmann, Bettina
Verbeek, Kevin
author_facet Beurskens, Thijs
Ophelders, Tim
Speckmann, Bettina
Verbeek, Kevin
contents Temporal sequences of terrains arise in various application areas. To analyze them efficiently, one generally needs a suitable abstraction of the data as well as a method to compare and match them over time. In this paper we consider merge trees as a topological descriptor for terrains and the interleaving distance as a method to match and compare them. An interleaving between two merge trees consists of two maps, one in each direction. These maps must satisfy ancestor relations and hence introduce a ''shift'' between points and their image. An optimal interleaving minimizes the maximum shift; the interleaving distance is the value of this shift. However, to study the evolution of merge trees over time, we need not only a number but also a meaningful matching between the two trees. The two maps of an optimal interleaving induce a matching, but due to the bottleneck nature of the interleaving distance, this matching fails to capture local similarities between the trees. In this paper we hence propose a notion of local optimality for interleavings. To do so, we define the residual interleaving distance, a generalization of the interleaving distance that allows additional constraints on the maps. This allows us to define locally correct interleavings, which use a range of shifts across the two merge trees that reflect the local similarity well. We give a constructive proof that a locally correct interleaving always exists.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_16474
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Locally Correct Interleavings between Merge Trees
Beurskens, Thijs
Ophelders, Tim
Speckmann, Bettina
Verbeek, Kevin
Computational Geometry
Temporal sequences of terrains arise in various application areas. To analyze them efficiently, one generally needs a suitable abstraction of the data as well as a method to compare and match them over time. In this paper we consider merge trees as a topological descriptor for terrains and the interleaving distance as a method to match and compare them. An interleaving between two merge trees consists of two maps, one in each direction. These maps must satisfy ancestor relations and hence introduce a ''shift'' between points and their image. An optimal interleaving minimizes the maximum shift; the interleaving distance is the value of this shift. However, to study the evolution of merge trees over time, we need not only a number but also a meaningful matching between the two trees. The two maps of an optimal interleaving induce a matching, but due to the bottleneck nature of the interleaving distance, this matching fails to capture local similarities between the trees. In this paper we hence propose a notion of local optimality for interleavings. To do so, we define the residual interleaving distance, a generalization of the interleaving distance that allows additional constraints on the maps. This allows us to define locally correct interleavings, which use a range of shifts across the two merge trees that reflect the local similarity well. We give a constructive proof that a locally correct interleaving always exists.
title Locally Correct Interleavings between Merge Trees
topic Computational Geometry
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.16474