Glossary for Geospatial Science

Delaunay criterion:A condition that must be met when a TNTmips TIN object is computed.� The technique used to generate the TIN object, known as Delaunay triangulation, produces a set of triangles that are as equi-angular as possible.� All circumcircles of Delaunay triangles contain no points other than the three that define the triangle and its circumference.� Satisfying the Delaunay criterion ensures that any point on the surface is as close as possible to one of the nodes, the number of long skinny triangles is minimized, each sample point is connected with two nearest neighbors to form a triangle, the triangulation solution is unique and independent of the order in which the points are processed, and the solution produced allows easy generation of Voronoi diagrams (Thiessen polygons) for the same set of input points.� Voronoi diagrams are widely used in spatial analysis.