Relaxed k-d tree


A relaxed K-d tree or relaxed K-dimensional tree is a data structure which is a variant of K-d trees. Like K-dimensional trees, a relaxed K-dimensional tree stores a set of n-multidimensional records, each one having a unique K-dimensional key x=. Unlike K-d trees, in a relaxed K-d tree, the discriminants in each node are arbitrary. Relaxed K-d trees were introduced in 1998.

Definitions

A relaxed K-d tree for a set of K-dimensional keys is a binary tree in which:
  1. Each node contains a K-dimensional record and has associated an arbitrary discriminant j ∈ .
  2. For every node with key x and discriminant j, the following invariant is true: any record in the left subtree with key y satisfies yj < xj, and any record in the right subtree with key y satisfies yj ≥ xj.
If K = 1, a relaxed K-d tree is a binary search tree.
As in a K-d tree, a relaxed K-d tree of size n induces a partition of the domain D into n+1 regions, each corresponding to a leaf in the K-d tree. The bounding box of a node is the region of the space delimited by the leaf in which x falls when it is inserted into the tree. Thus, the bounding box of the root is K, the bounding box of the left subtree's root is ×... × ×... ×, and so on.

Supported queries

The average time complexities in a relaxed K-d tree with n records are: