On the Complexity of the Plantinga–Vegter Algorithm

We introduce tools from numerical analysis and high dimensional probability for precision control and complexity analysis of subdivision-based algorithms in computational geometry. We combine these tools with the continuous amortization framework from exact computation. We use these tools on a well-known example from the subdivision family: the adaptive subdivision algorithm due to Plantinga and Vegter. The only existing complexity estimate on this rather fast algorithm was an exponential worst-case upper bound for its interval arithmetic version. We go beyond the worst-case by considering both average and smoothed analysis, and prove polynomial time complexity estimates for both interval arithmetic and finite-precision versions of the Plantinga–Vegter algorithm.