lattice representation

[John Carnahan]

Does anyone know any good references on lattice/grid representation? My
question is how could I best represent a 2-dimensional lattice with
neighborhood information. I am most interested in storage and retrieval of
neighbors from a linear table (eg SQL). Storing coordinates and then doing
directional lookups (N,S,E,W ...) cannot be the best way. 

For example, let's say that I have a given list of values/cells indexed by
an ordered set of integers. Then for a 1-dimensional lattice all neighbors
of cell x are given by indices x+1 and x-1. For a 2-dimensional lattice
things aren't so simple because any cell x has several neighbors (eg
hex=6, rect=8). There should be some way to index a set of values for a
2-dimensional lattice such that the position (or index) of the neighbors
of a given cell are described by its index. 

There must be tons of material written on this especially in the CA and
GIS literature. I thought this might be the best forum in which to ask
although it is not specifically related SWARM. 

Thanks,

JohnC
UCLA



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