Interrogating witnesses for geometric constraint solving

Classically, geometric constraint solvers use graph-based methods to decompose systems of geometric constraints. These methods have intrinsic limitations, which the witness method overcomes; a witness is a solution of a variant of the system. This paper details the computation of a basis of the vector space of free infinitesimal motions of a typical witness, and explains how to use this basis to interrogate the witness for dependence detection. The paper shows that the witness method detects all kinds of dependences: structural dependences already detectable by graph-based methods, but also non-structural dependences, due to known or unknown geometric theorems, which are undetectable by graph-based methods. It also discusses how to decide about the rigidity of a witness and how to decompose it. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.