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nigh

Nigh is a concurrent exact nearest neighbor searching library for Euclidean, SO(3), SE(3), SO(2), SE(2), and weighted combinations thereof. As a concurrent data structure it supports multiple threads concurrently inserting and querying the data structure with minimal wait time. As such it is ideal for embedding into parallel algorithms which require sharing a nearest neighbor data structure between multiple threads.

Nigh is a header-only library. Its only dependency (Eigen) is also a header-only library. Installation thus requires copying the header files into a known location.

Requirements

  • C++ 17 compiler (tested in clang 5+, gcc 7+)
  • Eigen
  • gnumake for tests

Usage

Defining a MetricSpace

Every Nigh object has a key type that forms a basis for the metric space of the nearest neighbor searching. The key type stores the state from the space. For this example, we will walk through searching for nearest neighbors in a Euclidean metric on R^3. We start with the definition of the state type. In this case we will use an 3-dimensional vector from Eigen (though other types are available out of the box). We will define a type for the state:

using State = Eigen::Vector3d;

Next we define the metric that we wish to use. In this case we wish to use a Euclidean metric, or L^2 metric, and thus we can use:

using Metric = nigh::LPMetric<2>;

Finally we put it together into a MetricSpace:

using Space = MetricSpace<State, Metric>;

Stored values and the key function

Nigh supports storing objects of arbitrary types, and requires a suitable function that can return the key from the object. For example, if an application stores and searches for objects of a custom node type:

struct MyNode {
    State key_;
    std::string name_;
  
    // using default copy constructor
    MyNode(const State& key, const std::string& name)
        : key_(key), name_(name)
    {
    }
};

We can define the key function for this object using a functor:

struct MyNodeKey {
    const State& operator() (const MyNode& node) const {
        return node.key_;
    }
};

Nearest Neighbor Template

With the stored type, metric space, and key function defined, we can create a nearest neighbor searching structure:

Nigh<MyNode, Space, MyNodeKey> nn;

Supported Metrics

Metrics are represented by tagging types and templates.

Type/Template Metric
LPMetric<p> L^p metric, equivalent to pow(pow(a[i] - b[i], p) + ..., 1/p). Values in this space are represented as a collection of scalars, e.g. Eigen::Matrix, Eigen::Array, std::array, or std::vector.
L2Metric Alias for LPMetric<2>, the Euclidean metric
L1Metric Alias for LPMetric<1>, the Manhattan metric
LInfMetric Alias for LPMetric<-1>, L^Infinity metric
SO2Metric<p> SO(2) rotational distance in a plane. When the space is R^n (i.e., multiple rotational values), the distance is summed as it would be with same p in LPMetric<p>.
SO3Metric SO(3) rotational distance defined as the shorter of two angle along the great arc that subtends the two values. Currently this assumes that the space will be represented by a unit quaternion.
CartesianMetric<M...> A metric that is the sum of contained metrics.
ScaledMetric<M, std::ratio<num, den>> A metric (M) scaled by a particular ratio. This is meant to be used within a Cartesian metric.
ScaledMetric<M> A metric (M) scaled by a scalar value at runtime. This metric's constructor requires a scalar value argument.

Using Scaled Metrics

The ScaledMetric templates wrap another metric so that the distance function is multiplied by a scalar value. As multiplying the distance by a scalar does not change the relation between pairs of points, the ScaledMetric is primarily for use embedded within a CartesianMetric. Currently Nigh supports two forms of scaled metrics: (1) scaled by a compile-time constant as determined by a std::ratio, and (2) scaled by a runtime scalar stored in an instance of a space. The former should be preferred when the constant is fixed as it does not require additional storage or maintainence of the scalar at runtime. The later should be used when the scalar value can be configured at runtime. But note that it is not possible to change the scalar once a the space is used by the tree as the scalar will be copied into a private variable at construction time.

Example ratio weighted space:

using namespace unc::robotics::nigh;
using Weight = std::ratio<7, 2>;
using Space = CartesianSpace<
    ScaledSpace<SO3Space<double>, std::ratio<7>>,    // multiply SO(3) distance by 7
    ScaledSpace<L2Space<double>, std::ratio<2,3>>>;  // multiply L2 distance by 0.6666
Space space;

Note, if you have a decimal ratio at compile time, just set the std::ratio denominator to the appropriate power of 10. For example, to use a ratio of 12.345, use std::ratio<12345,1000>.

Example runtime scalar weighted space:

using namespace unc::robotics::nigh;
using Space = CartesianSpace<
    ScaledSpace<SO3Space<double>>,
    ScaledSpace<L2Space<double, 3>>>;
// weighting scalar type matches scalar type of underlying space
double so3wt = 12.345;     
double l2wt = 6.789;
Space space(so3wt, l2wt);
Nigh<..., Space, ...> nn(space);

See also examples in the test directory.

Predefined Spaces

Nigh includes some pre-defined MetricSpace templates for common scenarios.

Type/Template Metric Type
LPSpace<S, dim, p> LPMetric<p> Eigen::Matrix<S, dim, 1>
SE2Space<S> CartesianMetric<LPMetric<2>, SO2Metric<>> std::tuple<Eigen::Matrix<S, 2, 1>, S>
SE3Space<S> CartesianMetric<SO3Metric, LPMetric<2>> std::tuple<Eigen::Quaternion<S>, Eigen::Matrix<S, 3, 1>>

Note: SE(2) and SE(3) types are organized for better type alignment.

Nearest Neighbor API

template <
    T,
    Space,
    KeyFn,
    Concurrency,
    Strategy,
    Allocator>
class Nigh;

Member Types

Member Type Definition
Type The T parameter
Space The Space parameter
Key The key type from the metric space
Metric The metric type from the metric space
Distance The distance type from the metric space

Member Functions

Constructors

Nigh(const Space& space = Space(), const KeyFn& keyFn = KeyFn(), const Allocator& alloc = Allocator())

This is the default and main constructor. It stores a copy of the arguments, and initializes the nearest neighbor structure to an empty structure.

Nigh(Nigh&&)

The move constructor. All nearest-neighbor structures are movable of their types are movable. Typically moves are fast O(1) operations that leave the source of the move in a valid, but empty state.

Nigh(const Nigh&) = delete;

Currently there are copy constructors. This may change later, but it is an expensive operation that may be better served by algorithms that rebalance the resulting copy in the process.

Mutation

void insert(const Type& value);

Inserts a value into the nearest neighbor data structure. The argument will be copied into the data structure. This operation is thread-safe only if the Concurrency template argument is Concurrent. Otherwise mutual exclusion from all other concurrent operation is must be insured by the caller (e.g., by locks or by only using a single thread).

void clear();

Removes all values from the nearest neighbor structure, setting the size to 0. This is never a thread-safe operation, regardless of Concurrency setting.

Searching

std::optional<std::pair<Type, Distance>> nearest(const Key& key) const;

Returns the nearest value to, and its distance from, the argument. The return value is a std::optional that will always be present unless the data structure is empty.

std::optional<Type> nearest(const Key& key, Distance *distOut) const;

Returns the nearest value to, and its distance from, the argument. The return value is a std::optional that will always be present unless the data structure is empty. When a the result is present, the value in distOut will be the distance between the key and the result. The distOut parameter may be nullptr, in which case the distance will is not returned.

template <typename Tuple, typename ResultAllocator>
void nearest(
    std::vector<Tuple, ResultAllocator>& nbh,
    const Key& key,
    std::size_t k,
    Distance maxRadius = std::numeric_limits<Distance>::infinity()) const;

Searches for the k-nearest neighbors of key, optionally within a constrained radius. The nearest neighbors are returned in the nbh vector provided. The Tuple type may be any tuple-like object with a Type and a Distance member in any order. Thus std::pair<Type, Distance> and std::tuple<Distance, Type> are valid types for Tuple. In this case, "tuple-like" means that std::get<I> and std::tuple_element<I, Tuple> are defined.

This method first clears the nbh argument, then populates it with the nearest neighbors. The caller thus does not need to call nbh.clear() between calls to nearest. It may however be advisable to call nbh.reserve(k+1) before calling this method to avoid unneccessary allocations within std::vector during the nearest-neighbor search. The +1 part is required since nearest() will temporarily increase the size to k+1 during searching. The final result will contain at most k values.

This method also supports searching for all neighbors within a radius. To get this behavior, set the k parameter to nbh.max_size().

std::vector<std::pair<Type, Distance>> nearest(
    const Key& key,
    std::size_t k,
    Distance maxRadius = std::numeric_limits<Distance>::infinity()) const;

This method is convience wrapper for the other k-nearest neighbor search method. It performs the same searching, and has the same result meaning for key', k, and maxRadius parameters.

Other

std::size_t size() const;

Returns the current number of values in the data structure.

allocator_type get_allocator() const;

Returns the allocator. This method signature matches STL's.

const Space& metricSpace() const;

Returns the metric space.