Abstract
The multi-way dataflow constraint model allows a user to describe interactive applications whose consistency is maintained by a local propagation algorithm. Local propagation applies a sequence of methods that solve the constraints individually. The local aspect of this solving process makes this model sensitive to cycles in the constraint graph. We use a formalism which overcomes this major limitation by allowing the definition of general methods that can solve several constraints simultaneously. This paper presents an algorithm called General-PDOF to deal with these methods which has a polynomial worst case time complexity. This algorithm therefore has the potential to tackle numerous real-life applications where cycles make local propagation unfeasible. Especially, general methods can implement “ruler and compass” rules to solve geometric constraints.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Christian Bliek, Bertrand Neveu, and Gilles Trombettoni. Using Graph Decomposition for Solving Continuous CSPs. In these proceedings, 1998.
Alan Borning, Bjorn Freeman-Benson, and Molly Wilson. Constraint hierarchies. Lisp and Symbolic Computation, 5(3):223–270, September 1992.
William Bouma, Ioannis Fudos, Christoph Hoffmann, Jiazhen Cai, and Robert Paige. Geometric constraint solver. Computer Aided Design, 27(6):487–501, 1995.
Jean-FranÇois Dufourd, Pascal Mathis, and Pascal Schreck. Geometric Construction by Assembling Solved Subfigures. Artificial Intelligence, 99(1):73–119, 1998.
Bjorn Freeman-Benson, John Maloney, and Alan Borning. An incremental constraint solver. Communications of the ACM, 33(1):54–63, January 1990.
Ioannis Fudos and Christoph Hoffmann. A graph-constructive approach to solving systems of geometric constraints. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 16(2):179–216, 1997.
Michel Gangnet and Burton Rosenberg. Constraint programming and graph algorithms. In Second International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics, January 1992.
James Gosling. Algebraic Constraints. PhD thesis, Carnegie—Mellon University, 1983.
Pascal Van Hentenryck, Laurent Michel, and Yves Deville. Numerica: A Modeling Language for Global Optimization. MIT Press, 1997.
Ching-Yao Hsu and Beat Brüderlin. A degree-of-freedom graph approach. In, editor, pages 132–155. Springer Verlag, 1997.
D. König. über Graphen und ihre Anwendung auf Determinantentheorie und Mengenlehre. In Math Ann 77, pages 453–465, 1916.
Glenn Kramer. Solving Geometric Constraint Systems. MIT Press, 1992.
Michael Sannella, John Maloney, Bjorn Freeman-Benson, and Alan Borning. Multi-way versus one-way constraints in user interfaces. Software-Practice and Experience, 23(5):529–566, May 1993.
Michael Sannella. Constraint Satisfaction and Debugging for Interactive User Interfaces. PhD thesis, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, 1994. Also available as Technical Report 94-09-10.
D. Serrano. Constraint Management in Conceptual Design. PhD thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 1987.
Ivan Sutherland. Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System. PhD thesis, Department of Electrical Engineering, MIT, 1963.
Gilles Trombettoni and Bertrand Neveu. Computational complexity of multi-way, dataflow constraint problems. In International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI’97, pages 358–363, 1997.
Gilles Trombettoni. Formalizing local propagation in constraint maintenance systems. In 7 th Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence, EPIA’95, pages 83–94, 1995. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 990.
Gilles Trombettoni. Solution Maintenance of Constraint Systems Based on Local Propagation. PhD thesis, University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, 1997. In french.
Bradley Vander Zanden. An incremental algorithm for satisfying hierarchies of multi-way, datafow constraints. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 18(1):30–72, January 1996.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Trombettoni, G. (1998). A Polynomial Time Local Propagation Algorithm for General Datafow Constraint Problems. In: Maher, M., Puget, JF. (eds) Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming — CP98. CP 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1520. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49481-2_31
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49481-2_31
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65224-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49481-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive