Class MortonCode

Hierarchy: Object , MortonCode
public class MortonCode
Encodes points as the index along the planar Morton (Z-order) curve.

The planar Morton (Z-order) curve is a continuous space-filling curve. The Morton curve defines an ordering of the points in the positive quadrant of the plane. The index of a point along the Morton curve is called the Morton code.

A sequence of subsets of the Morton curve can be defined by a level number. Each level subset occupies a square range. The curve at level n Mn contains 2n + 1 points. It fills the range square of side 2level. Curve points have ordinates in the range [0, 2level - 1]. The code for a given point is identical at all levels. The level simply determines the number of points in the curve subset and the size of the range square.

This implementation represents codes using 32-bit integers. This allows levels 0 to 16 to be handled. The class supports encoding points and decoding the point for a given code value.

The Morton order has the property that it tends to preserve locality. This means that codes which are near in value will have spatially proximate points. The converse is not always true - the delta between codes for nearby points is not always small. But the average delta is small enough that the Morton order is an effective way of linearizing space to support range queries.

Authors:
Martin Davis
See also:
MortonCurveBuilder
HilbertCode
public static int size(int level)
The number of points in the curve for the given level. The number of points is 2 2 * level.
Parameters:
level - level the level of the curve
Returns:
the number of points
public static int maxOrdinate(int level)
The maximum ordinate value for points in the curve for the given level. The maximum ordinate is 2 level - 1.
Parameters:
level - level the level of the curve
Returns:
the maximum ordinate value
public static int level(int numPoints)
The level of the finite Morton curve which contains at least the given number of points.
Parameters:
numPoints - numPoints the number of points required
Returns:
the level of the curve
public static int encode(int x, int y)
Computes the index of the point (x,y) in the Morton curve ordering.
Parameters:
x - x the x ordinate of the point
y - y the y ordinate of the point
Returns:
the index of the point along the Morton curve
public static Coordinate decode(int index)
Computes the point on the Morton curve for a given index.
Parameters:
index - index the index of the point on the curve
Returns:
the point on the curve