Moving point object data can be analyzed through the discovery of patterns. We consider the computational efficiency of detecting four such spatio-temporal patterns, namely flock, leadership, convergence, and encounter, as defined by Laube et al., 2004. These patterns are large enough subgroups of the moving point objects that exhibit similar movement in the sense of direction, heading for the same location, and/or proximity. By the use of techniques from computational geometry, including approximation algorithms, we improve the running time bounds of existing algorithms to detect these patterns.

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Abstract. Data representing moving objects is rapidly getting more available, especially in the area of wildlife GPS tracking. It is a central belief that information is hidden in large data sets in the form of interesting patterns. One of the most common spatio-temporal patterns sought after is flocks. A flock is a large enough subset of objects moving along paths close to each other for a certain pre-defined time. We give a new definition that we argue is more realistic than the previous ones, and by the use of techniques from computational geometry we present fast algorithms to detect and report flocks. The algorithms are analysed both theoretically and experimentally.

A trajectory is a sequence of locations, each associated with a timestamp, describing the movement of a point. Trajectory data is becoming increasingly available and the size of recorded trajectories is getting larger. In this paper we study the problem of compressing planar trajectories such that the most common spatio-temporal queries can still be answered approximately after the compression has taken place. In the process, we develop an implementation of the Douglas-Peucker path-simplification algorithm which works efficiently even in the case where the polygonal path given as input is allowed to self-intersect. For a polygonal path of size n, the processing time is O(n log k n) for k = 2 or k = 3 depending on the type of simplification.

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