How does this code for delaunay triangulation work?

Question

I have this Java code that with a set of Point in input return a set of graph's edge that represent a Delaunay triangulation.

I would like to know what strategy was used to do this, if exist, the name of algorithm used.

In this code GraphEdge contains two awt Point and represent an edge in the triangulation, GraphPoint extends Awt Point, and the edges of final triangulation are returned in a TreeSet object.

My purpose is to understand how this method works:

public TreeSet getEdges(int n, int[] x, int[] y, int[] z)

below the complete source code of this triangulation :

import java.awt.Point;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.TreeSet;

public class DelaunayTriangulation
{
   int[][] adjMatrix;

   DelaunayTriangulation(int size)
   {
     this.adjMatrix = new int[size][size];
   }
   public int[][] getAdj() {
     return this.adjMatrix;
   }

   public TreeSet getEdges(int n, int[] x, int[] y, int[] z)
   {
     TreeSet result = new TreeSet();

     if (n == 2)
     {
       this.adjMatrix[0][1] = 1;
       this.adjMatrix[1][0] = 1;
       result.add(new GraphEdge(new GraphPoint(x[0], y[0]), new GraphPoint(x[1], y[1])));

       return result;
     }

     for (int i = 0; i < n - 2; i++) {
       for (int j = i + 1; j < n; j++) {
         for (int k = i + 1; k < n; k++)
         {
           if (j == k) {
             continue;
           }
           int xn = (y[j] - y[i]) * (z[k] - z[i]) - (y[k] - y[i]) * (z[j] - z[i]);

           int yn = (x[k] - x[i]) * (z[j] - z[i]) - (x[j] - x[i]) * (z[k] - z[i]);

           int zn = (x[j] - x[i]) * (y[k] - y[i]) - (x[k] - x[i]) * (y[j] - y[i]);
           boolean flag;
           if (flag = (zn < 0 ? 1 : 0) != 0) {
             for (int m = 0; m < n; m++) {
               flag = (flag) && ((x[m] - x[i]) * xn + (y[m] - y[i]) * yn + (z[m] - z[i]) * zn <= 0);
             }

           }

           if (!flag)
           {
             continue;
           }
           result.add(new GraphEdge(new GraphPoint(x[i], y[i]), new GraphPoint(x[j], y[j])));
           //System.out.println("----------");
           //System.out.println(x[i]+" "+ y[i] +"----"+x[j]+" "+y[j]);

          result.add(new GraphEdge(new GraphPoint(x[j], y[j]), new GraphPoint(x[k], y[k])));
          //System.out.println(x[j]+" "+ y[j] +"----"+x[k]+" "+y[k]);
          result.add(new GraphEdge(new GraphPoint(x[k], y[k]), new GraphPoint(x[i], y[i])));
           //System.out.println(x[k]+" "+ y[k] +"----"+x[i]+" "+y[i]);
           this.adjMatrix[i][j] = 1;
           this.adjMatrix[j][i] = 1;
           this.adjMatrix[k][i] = 1;
           this.adjMatrix[i][k] = 1;
           this.adjMatrix[j][k] = 1;
           this.adjMatrix[k][j] = 1;
         }

       }

     }

     return result;
   }

   public TreeSet getEdges(TreeSet pointsSet)
   {
     if ((pointsSet != null) && (pointsSet.size() > 0))
     {
       int n = pointsSet.size();

       int[] x = new int[n];
       int[] y = new int[n];
       int[] z = new int[n];

       int i = 0;

       Iterator iterator = pointsSet.iterator();
       while (iterator.hasNext())
       {
         Point point = (Point)iterator.next();

         x[i] = (int)point.getX();
         y[i] = (int)point.getY();
         z[i] = (x[i] * x[i] + y[i] * y[i]);

         i++;
       }

       return getEdges(n, x, y, z);
     }

     return null;
   }
 }

Answer 1

Looks like what is described here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaunay_triangulation :

The problem of finding the Delaunay triangulation of a set of points in d-dimensional Euclidean space can be converted to the problem of finding the convex hull of a set of points in (d + 1)-dimensional space, by giving each point p an extra coordinate equal to |p|2, taking the bottom side of the convex hull, and mapping back to d-dimensional space by deleting the last coordinate.

In your example d is 2.

The vector (xn,yn,zn) is the cross product of the vectors (point i -> point j) and (point i -> point k) or in other words a vector perpendicular to the triangle (point i, point j, point k).

The calculation of flag checks whether the normal of this triangle points towards the negative z direction and whether all other points are on the side opposite to the normal of the triangle (opposite because the other points need to be above the triangle's plane because we're interested in the bottom side of the convex hull). If this is the case, the triangle (i,j,k) is part of the 3D convex hull and therefore the x and y components (the projection of the 3D triangle onto the x,y plane) is part of the (2D) Delaunay triangulation.