Deletion in Abstract Voronoi Diagrams in Expected Linear Time

Updating an abstract Voronoi diagram in linear time, after deletion of one site, has been an open problem for a long time. Similarly for various concrete Voronoi diagrams of generalized sites, other than points. In this paper we present a simple, expected linear-time algorithm to update an abstract Voronoi diagram after deletion. We introduce the concept of a Voronoi-like diagram, a relaxed version of a Voronoi construct that has a structure similar to an abstract Voronoi diagram, without however being one. Voronoi-like diagrams serve as intermediate structures, which are considerably simpler to compute, thus, making an expected linear-time construction possible. We formalize the concept and prove that it is robust under an insertion operation, thus, enabling its use in incremental constructions.