Counting Cells of Order-k Voronoi Tessellations in ℝ³ with Morse Theory

Ranita Biswas, Sebastiano Cultrera di Montesano, Herbert Edelsbrunner, Morteza Saghafian

Abstract: Generalizing Lee’s inductive argument for counting the cells of higher order Voronoi tessellations in ℝ² to ℝ³, we get precise relations in terms of Morse theoretic quantities for piecewise constant functions on planar arrangements. Specifically, we prove that for a generic set of n ≥ 5 points in ℝ³, the number of regions in the order-k Voronoi tessellation is N_{k-1} - binom(k,2)n + n, for 1 ≤ k ≤ n-1, in which N_{k-1} is the sum of Euler characteristics of these function’s first k-1 sublevel sets. We get similar expressions for the vertices, edges, and polygons of the order-k Voronoi tessellation.