Stability and Minimax Optimality of Tangential Delaunay Complexes for Manifold Reconstruction

Abstract: We consider the problem of optimality in manifold reconstruction. A random sample $\mathbb{X}_n = \left{X_1,\ldots,X_n\right}\subset \mathbb{R}^D$ composed of points close to a $d$-dimensional submanifold $M$, with or without outliers drawn in the ambient space, is observed. Based on the Tangential Delaunay Complex, we construct an estimator $\hat{M}$ that is ambient isotopic and Hausdorff-close to $M$ with high probability. The estimator $\hat{M}$ is built from existing algorithms. In a model with additive noise of small amplitude, we show that this estimator is asymptotically minimax optimal for the Hausdorff distance over a class of submanifolds satisfying a reach constraint. Therefore, even with no a priori information on the tangent spaces of $M$, our estimator based on Tangential Delaunay Complexes is optimal. This shows that the optimal rate of convergence can be achieved through existing algorithms. A similar result is also derived in a model with outliers. A geometric interpolation result is derived, showing that the Tangential Delaunay Complex is stable with respect to noise and perturbations of the tangent spaces. In the process, a decluttering procedure and a tangent space estimator both based on local principal component analysis (PCA) are studied.