- CGAL
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CGAL Developer(s) CGAL Open Source Project Stable release 3.8 / April 19, 2011 Written in C++ Operating system Multi-platform Type Application framework License License Website CGAL Homepage The Computational Geometry Algorithms Library (CGAL) is a software library that aims to provide easy access to efficient and reliable algorithms in computational geometry. While primarily written in C++, Python and Scilab bindings are also available.[1] [2]
The software is available under dual licensing scheme. When used for other open source software, it is available under open source licenses (LGPL or QPL depending on the component). In other cases commercial license may be purchased, under different options for academic/research and industrial customers.[3]
Contents
History
The CGAL project was founded in 1996, as a consortium of eight research institutions in Europe and Israel: Utrecht University, ETH Zurich, Free University of Berlin, INRIA Sophia Antipolis, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Max Planck Institute for Informatics Saarbrücken, Johannes Kepler University Linz, and Tel-Aviv University. The original funding for the project came from the ESPRIT project of the European Union.[4] Originally, its licensing terms allowed its software to be used freely for academic purposes, with commercial licenses available for other uses. The current licensing scheme was introduced in 2003. As of 2009[update] it is managed by a fourteen-member editorial board, with an additional 30 developers and reviewers.[5]
The project started in 1996 as the pooling of the previous efforts of several project participants:PlaGeo and SpaGeo from Utrecht University, LEDA of the Max-Planck-Institute for Informatics and C++GAL of INRIA Sophia-Antipolis. The LEDA library encompasses a broader range of algorithms. A comparison of the two libraries is provided by Kettner and Näher.[6] Three CGAL User workshops held in 2002, 2004, and 2008 highlighted research results related to CGAL,[7] and many additional papers related to CGAL have appeared in other conferences, workshops, and journals.[8]
Scope
The library covers the following topics
- Geometry kernels - basic geometric operations on geometric primitives
- Arithmetic and algebra
- Convex hull algorithms
- Polygons and polyhedra
- Polygon and polyhedron operations
- Arrangements
- Triangulations
- Delaunay triangulations
- Voronoi diagrams
- Mesh generation
- Geometry processing
- Search structures
- Shape analysis, fitting, and distances
- Interpolation
- Kinetic data structures
Platforms
The library is supported on a number of platforms.
The CGAL library depends on the Boost library.
References
- ^ CGAL Python bindings, developed at INRIA by Naceur Meskini and Sylvain Pion.
- ^ CGAL Scilab bindings, developed at Scilab and INRIA by Edyta Przymus, Naceur Meskini and Sylvain Pion.
- ^ CGAL license
- ^ CGAL Project History.
- ^ CGAL Project Members.
- ^ Kettner, L.; Näher, S. (2004). "Two computational geometry libraries: LEDA and CGAL". Handbook of Discrete and Computational Geometry. pp. 1435–1464..
- ^ CGAL User Workshop program, 2nd CGAL User Workshop program and 3rd CGAL User Workshop program.
- ^ As of 2010[update], Google scholar lists 137 papers with CGAL in their titles.
External links
- CGAL Homepage
- OpenCASCADE (similar but different)
Categories:- Geometric algorithms
- C++ libraries
- Python libraries
- Free development toolkits and libraries
- Max Planck Institute for Computer Science
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