The l-basis of a planar rational curve—properties and

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The l -basis of a planar rationalcurve—properties and computationFalai Chen a,*and Wenping Wang baDepartment of Mathematics,University of Science and Technology of China,Hefei,Anhui 230026,PR China b Department of Computer Science and Information Systems,University of Hong Kong,Hong Kong,PR ChinaReceived 29October 2001received in revised form 19November 2002accepted 3December 2002AbstractA moving line L ðx ;y ;t Þ¼0is a family of lines with one parameter t in a plane.A moving line L ðx ;y ;t Þ¼0is said to follow a rational curve P ðt Þif the point P ðt 0Þis on the line L ðx ;y ;t 0Þ¼0for any parameter value t 0.A l -basis of a rational curve P ðt Þis a pair of lowest degree moving lines that constitute a basis of the module formed by all the moving lines fol-lowing P ðt Þ,which is the syzygy module of P ðt Þ.The study of moving lines,especially the l -basis,has recently led to an efficient method,called the moving line method ,for computing the implicit equation of a rational curve [3,6].In this paper,we present properties and equivalent definitions of a l -basis of a planar rational curve.Several of these properties and definitions are new,and they help to clarify an earlier definition of the l -basis [3].Furthermore,based on some of these newly established properties,an efficient algorithm is presented to compute a l -basis of a planar rational curve.This algorithm applies vector elimination to the moving line module of P ðt Þ,and has O ðn 2Þtime complexity,where n is the degree of P ðt Þ.We show that the new algorithm is more efficient than the fastest previous algorithm [7].Ó2003Elsevier Science (USA).All rights reserved.Keywords:Rational curve;Implicitization;Moving line;l -Basis;SyzygymoduleGraphical Models 64(2003)368–381/locate/gmod*Corresponding author.E-mail addresses:chenfl@ (F.Chen),wenping@csis.hku.hk (W.Wang).1524-0703/03/$-see front matter Ó2003Elsevier Science (USA).All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/S1524-0703(02)00017-5F.Chen,W.Wang/Graphical Models64(2003)368–3813691.IntroductionA moving line is a family of lines with one parameter t in the plane,and can thus be represented by Lðx;y;tÞ AðtÞxþBðtÞyþCðtÞ¼0,where AðtÞ;BðtÞ;CðtÞare polynomials.A moving line Lðx;y;tÞis said to follow a rational curve PðtÞ¼ðaðtÞ;bðtÞ;cðtÞÞif the point Pðt0Þis on the line Lðx;y;t0Þ¼0for any parameter value t0.As a convention,we call a moving line that follows the curve PðtÞa moving line of PðtÞ.A l-basis of a rational curve PðtÞis a pair of lowest degree moving lines that constitute a basis of the module formed by all the moving lines of PðtÞ.The l-basis of a planar rational curve has been proposed for computing the im-plicit equation of a planar rational curve[3].Applying a variant of BezoutÕs resultant to the l-basis,we can write the implicit equation of PðtÞas anðnÀlÞÂðnÀlÞde-terminant,where0<l6½n=2 ;in contrast,with other resultant based methods,the implicit equation must be written either as an nÂn determinant(using the Bezout resultant)or as a2nÂ2n determinant(using the Sylvester resultant).In the generic case where l¼b n=2c,the implicit equation can be written as an d n=2eÂd n=2e de-terminant.Thus,the l-basis provides a compact solution to the implicitization of a planar rational curve.Recent studies also show that the l-basis can be used to derive inversion formulas or study the singular points of a planar rational curve[2];besides,the rational para-metric equation of the curve can easily be obtained from the l-basis.Hence,the l-basis serves as a compact and useful representation of a planar rational curve—connecting its implicit equation and parametric equation,and facilitating the study of many properties of the curve.The definition and some properties of the l-basis of a planar rational curve have been studied in[3].However,the definition of the l-basis has not been given consis-tently,and the properties,especially those characterizing properties,of the l-basis have not been presented completely or systematically in the literature.In light of this, we present in Section2a list of properties and equivalent definitions of the l-basis of a planar rational curve.Several of these properties and definitions are new and pro-vide insight into efficient computation of the l-basis.These results have recently been used in studying the reparameterization of rational ruled surfaces[1].As an applica-tion,in Sections3we describe a new algorithm for computing the l-basis of a planar rational curve,and show that,besides being conceptually simpler,this algorithm is more efficient than the previous known fastest algorithm for computing the l-basis [7].We conclude the paper in Section4with some open problems.2.Definition and properties of l-basisWe begin with some preliminary knowledge about modules.Let R½t and R½x;y;t be the polynomial rings over thefield of real numbers,R,and R½t d denote the set of d-dimensional row vectors with entries in R½t .A set of vector polynomials M&R½t d is called a module over R½t if h1f1þh2f22M for any f1;f22M and h1;h22R½t .Suppose that M&R½t d is a module.If there exists afinite set of elements f i2M, i¼1;...;m,such that any f2M can be expressed byf¼h1f1þÁÁÁþh m f m;ð1Þwith h i2R½t ,i¼1;...;m,then M is said to befinitely generated,f f1;...;f m g is called a generating set of M,and we write M¼h f1;...;f m i.If expression(1)is un-ique for any f2M,then the generating set f f1;...;f m g is called a basis of the module M.Afinitely generated module over R½t always has a basis and is called a free module[4].Vector polynomials gi ðtÞin R½t 3,i¼1;2;...;m,are said to be R½t -linearly inde-pendent if P mi¼1h iðtÞg iðtÞ¼0,with h iðtÞ2R½t ,implies h iðtÞ¼0for i¼1;2;...;m.Let a planar rational curve be given byPðtÞ¼ðaðtÞ;bðtÞ;cðtÞÞð2Þin homogeneous form,where aðtÞ,bðtÞ,cðtÞ2R½t are relatively prime.The degree of PðtÞis defined to be n max f degðaðtÞÞ;degðbðtÞÞ;degðcðtÞÞg.For brevity,we will often denote aðtÞ;bðtÞ,and cðtÞby a,b,and c,respectively,where there is no danger of confusion.A moving line is a family of lines with one parameter t,defined by[5]Lðx;y;tÞ:¼AðtÞxþBðtÞyþCðtÞ¼0;ð3Þwhere AðtÞ;BðtÞ;CðtÞ2R½t .The degree of Lðx;y;tÞis defined to bedegðLðx;y;tÞÞ max f degðAðtÞÞ;degðBðtÞÞ;degðCðtÞÞg:For convenience,we also denote a moving line by LðtÞ ðAðtÞ;BðtÞ;CðtÞÞ.The moving line(3)follows the rational curve PðtÞ¼ðaðtÞ;bðtÞ;cðtÞÞif and only if LðtÞÁPðtÞ¼AðtÞaðtÞþBðtÞbðtÞþCðtÞcðtÞ 0:ð4ÞA moving line Lðx;y;tÞ¼0follows the curve PðtÞif the point Pðt0Þis on the line Lðx;y;t0Þ¼0for any parameter value t0.So one may say that an arbitrary point Pðt0Þof the curve PðtÞis at the intersection of two different moving lines of PðtÞwith the same parameter value t0.The moving line ideal of a rational curve PðtÞis defined to beI P¼f h1ðcxÀaÞþh2ðcyÀbÞj h1;h22R½x;y;t g&R½x;y;t :ð5ÞLet J1denote the set of all polynomials of degree one in x and y but somefinite degree in t.Then M P I P\J1consists of all moving lines in I P and is a module over R½t [3].It is proved in[3]that a moving line Lðx;y;tÞis a moving line of PðtÞif and only if Lðx;y;tÞ2M P.Thus M P is called the moving line module of PðtÞ.The moving line module M P of the rational curve PðtÞis isomorphic to the moduleM P¼fðAðtÞ;BðtÞ;CðtÞÞj AðtÞaðtÞþBðtÞbðtÞþCðtÞcðtÞ 0g&R½t 3under the isomorphism AðtÞxþBðtÞyþCðtÞ!ðAðtÞ;BðtÞ;CðtÞÞ.So we will use M P and M P interchangeably to represent the moving line module of PðtÞ.370 F.Chen,W.Wang/Graphical Models64(2003)368–381F.Chen,W.Wang/Graphical Models64(2003)368–381371Let a vector polynomial pðtÞ2R½t 3be written asX mp¼ðp1ðtÞ;p2ðtÞ;p3ðtÞÞ¼ðp i1;p i2;p i3Þt i;i¼0with the leading coefficient vectorðp m1;p m2;p m3Þ¼0.We denoteðp m1;p m2;p m3Þby LVðpÞand the degree of p by degðpÞ¼m.For example,forp¼ð2t2þ3tþ1;tþ4;t2þ2tþ3Þ;LVðpÞ¼ð2;0;1Þand degðpÞ¼2.Definition1.Two moving lines p¼p1ðtÞxþp2ðtÞyþp3ðtÞand q¼q1ðtÞxþq2ðtÞyþq3ðtÞare called a l-basis of a rational curve PðtÞ,or equivalently,a l-basis of M P,if 1.p and q are a basis of M P,i.e.,any moving line L2M P can be expressed byL¼h1pþh2q;ð6Þwith h1;h22R½t ;and2.p and q have the lowest degrees among all bases of M P;that is,assumingdegðpÞ6degðqÞ,then there does not exist another basis~p and~q of M P,with degð~pÞ6degð~qÞ,such that degð~pÞ<degðpÞor degð~qÞ<degðqÞ.The above definition of a l-basis appears to be different from a definition given in [3]for the l-basis for a rational curve in R d,d P2.Actually,two definitions for the l-basis are given in[3];thefirst one on page809is for a planar rational curve and the second one on page824for a rational curve in R d.Thefirst definition is one of the equivalent definitions for the l-basis to be given in the present paper;how-ever,the second condition,which covers the case of a planar rational curve,though equivalent to thefirst one,contains a redundant condition.The following is proved in[3]:Proposition1.Any planar rational curve PðtÞhas a l-basis.2.1.PropertiesThe existence of a l-basis of a planar rational curve,along with some of its prop-erties,are proved in[3].In the following we will present a more complete list of prop-erties of the l-basis,including some from[3],and then give several equivalent definitions of the l-basis.Theorem1.Let p¼p1ðtÞxþp2ðtÞyþp3ðtÞand q¼q1ðtÞxþq2ðtÞyþq3ðtÞbe a l-basis of a planar rational curve PðtÞ,where degðpÞ6degðqÞ.Denote p¼ðp1;p2;p3Þand q¼ðq1;q2;q3Þ.Then the following properties hold:1.p and q are R½t -linearly independent.2.pðt0Þ¼0and qðt0Þ¼0for any parameter value t0.3.pðt0Þand qðt0Þare linearly independent for any parameter value t0.4.LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly independent.372 F.Chen,W.Wang/Graphical Models64(2003)368–3815.Expression(6)is unique for any moving line L of PðtÞ.6.Any moving line L of PðtÞcan be expressed in(6)with degðh1pÞ6degðLÞanddegðh2qÞ6degðLÞ.7.pÂq¼k PðtÞfor some non-zero constant k.8.degðpÞþdegðqÞ¼n.Denote degðpÞ¼l and degðqÞ¼nÀl in t,where06l6b n=2c.Then l is unique for a given curve PðtÞ;furthermore,l is the lowest degree of any moving line of the curve PðtÞ.9.I P¼h p;q i.10.The implicit equation of PðtÞis given by Resðp;q;tÞ,i.e.,the resultant of p and qwith respect to t.Proof.(1)Consider the two moving lines of PðtÞ¼ðaðtÞ;bðtÞ;cðtÞÞ:u¼ðc;0;ÀaÞand v¼ð0;c;ÀbÞ,which are clearly R½t -linearly independent.Then u¼h11pþh12q and v¼h21pþh22q for some polynomials h ij2R½t ,i;j¼1;2.Hencecða;b;cÞ¼uÂv¼h pÂq;where h¼h11h22Àh12h21¼0.Thus pÂq¼0except for possiblyfinitely many values,and it follows that p and q are R½t -linearly independent.(2)Suppose pðt0Þ¼0for some t0,thenðtÀt0Þj pðtÞ.Let~pðtÞ¼pðtÞ=ðtÀt0Þ.Then ~pðtÞand qðtÞare also a basis of M P.But degð~pðtÞÞ<degðpðtÞÞ,a contradiction to that pðtÞand qðtÞare a l-basis.Similarly,one can show that qðt0Þ¼0.(3)Suppose that pðt0Þand qðt0Þare linearly dependent for some t0.Then there ex-ist constants a and b,both of them are nonzero,such that a pðt0Þþb qðt0Þ¼0.Let L¼a pþb q.Then L2M P,and L is not identically zero,since,by Property(1),p and q are R½t -linearly independent.Since Lðt0Þ¼0,ðtÀt0Þj L.Let~q¼L=ðtÀt0Þ. Then it is easy to verify that p and~q also form a basis of the module M P.But degð~qÞ<degðqÞ,contradicting that p and q are a l-basis.Hence,pðt0Þand qðt0Þare linearly independent for any t0.(4)Suppose that LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly dependent.Then a LVðpÞþb LVðqÞ¼0for some constants a and b,both are nonzero.Let~q¼a p t dþb q,where d¼degðqÞÀdegðpÞ.Then p and~q also form a basis of M P.However,since the lead-ing coefficient vectors of a p t d and b q cancel each other,degð~qÞ<degðqÞ,contradict-ing that q has the lowest degree among all the bases of PðtÞ.Hence,LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly independent.(5)For any moving line L of P,suppose L¼h1pþh2q and L¼g1pþg2q.Then ðh1Àg1Þpþðh2Àg2Þq¼0.It follows that h1¼g1and h2¼g2,since,by Property (1)above,p and q are R½t -linearly independent.Hence expression(6)is unique.(6)Suppose L¼h1pþh2q.If degðh1pÞ>degðLÞ,then LVðh1pÞþLVðh2qÞ¼0, thus LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly dependent,contradicting Property(4)above. Hence,degðh1pÞ6degðLÞ.Similarly,degðh2qÞ6degðLÞ.(7)Since pÁPðtÞ¼qÁPðtÞ¼0,and p and q are R½t -linearly independent,we have pÂq¼ðgðtÞ=hðtÞÞPðtÞfor gðtÞ;hðtÞ2R½t ,where g and h are relatively prime.Since aðtÞ,bðtÞ,and cðtÞare relatively prime,hðtÞmust be a constant.If gðtÞis not a con-stant,letting t0be a zero of gðtÞover the complexfield,then pðt0ÞÂqðt0Þ¼0,i.e.pðt0Þand qðt0Þare linearly dependent;but this contradicts Property(3)above.So gðtÞis also a constant,and plainly,g¼0.Hence,pÂq¼k PðtÞfor some nonzero con-stant k.(8)From Property(7),degðpÂqÞ¼degðPÞ¼n.Let p¼pl t lþp lÀ1t lÀ1þÁÁÁþp0and q¼qm t mþq mÀ1t mÀ1þÁÁÁþq0.Then pÂq¼ðp lÂq mÞt lþmþÁÁÁþp0Âq0.ByProperty(4),LVðpÞ¼pl and LVðqÞ¼qmare linearly independent,so plÂq m¼0.Itfollows thatdegðpÞþdegðqÞ¼lþm¼degðpÂqÞ¼degðPÞ¼n:The uniqueness of l is implied by the minimality of the degrees of p and q.On the other hand,let L2M P be any moving line of PðtÞ,then L¼h1pþh2q for some h1;h22R½t .If degðLÞ<l,then LVðh1pÞand LVðh2qÞcancel with each other. Hence LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly dependent,a contradiction to Property4above. Thus l is the lowest degree of any moving line of PðtÞ.(9)First recall that the moving line ideal I P is generated by cxÀa and cyÀb. Since cxÀa;cyÀb2M P,and p and q are a basis of M P,cxÀa;cyÀb can be ex-pressed by linear combinations of p and q over R½t .Hence,I P can be generated by p and q.(10)See[3].This completes of the proof of Theorem1.ÃThe relationship between different l-bases of a rational curve PðtÞis given by the following theorem.Theorem2.Let p;q,and~p;~q be two l-bases of a rational curve PðtÞ,with degðpÞ6degðqÞand degð~pÞ6degð~qÞ.Then degðpÞ¼degð~pÞand degðqÞ¼degð~qÞ. Furthermore,if degðpÞ¼degðqÞ,then~p¼a1pþb1q;~q¼a2pþb2qfor some constants a1,a2,b1,and b2with a1b2Àa2b1¼0;if degðpÞ<degðqÞ,then ~p¼a p;~q¼h pþb qfor some nonzero constants a and b,and h2R½t with degðhÞ6degðqÞÀdegðpÞ.Proof.By the definition of the l-basis,it is straightforward to see that degðpÞ¼degð~pÞand degðqÞ¼degð~qÞ.This is also Property(8)of Theorem1.Since~p;~q2M P,and p;q are a basis of M P,~p¼a1pþb1q;~q¼a2pþb2q;with a i;b i2R½t ,i¼1;2.If degðpÞ¼degðqÞ,then degð~pÞ¼degð~qÞ¼degðpÞ¼degðqÞ.It then follows from by Property(6)of Theorem1that a1,a2,b1,and b2are constants.We have a1b2Àa2b1¼0since~p and~q are R½t -linearly independent.If degðpÞ<degðqÞ,then degð~pÞ¼degðpÞ<degðqÞ.Again by Property(6)of Theorem1,b1¼0and a1is a nonzero constant.Similarly,from degð~qÞ¼degðqÞ>degðpÞ,one has b2is a nonzero constant and degða2Þ6degðqÞÀdegðpÞ.ÃF.Chen,W.Wang/Graphical Models64(2003)368–381373374 F.Chen,W.Wang/Graphical Models64(2003)368–3812.2.Equivalent definitionsNext we provide some equivalent definitions of a l-basis of a planar rational curve.Theorem3.Let p;q2M P be two moving lines of a planar rational curve PðtÞof degree n.Assume degðpÞ6degðqÞ.Then p and q form a l-basis of PðtÞif and only if one of the following conditions holds1.Any moving line L can be expressed in(6)with degðh1pÞ6degðLÞanddegðh2qÞ6degðLÞ.2.Any moving line L can be expressed in(6),and LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly inde-pendent.3.Any moving line L can be expressed in(6)and degðpÞþdegðqÞ¼n.4.pÂq¼k P for some non-zero constant k and degðpÞþdegðqÞ¼n.5.pÂq¼k P for some non-zero constant k,and LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly inde-pendent.6.degðpÞþdegðqÞ¼n,and p and q are R½t -linearly independent.7.degðpÞþdegðqÞ¼n,and LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly independent.8.degðpÞþdegðqÞ¼n and I P¼h p;q i.Here p¼pÁðx;y;1Þand q¼qÁðx;y;1Þ. Proof.The necessity of all the above conditions has been proved in Theorem1.So in the following we consider only their sufficiency.(1)We just need to show that p and q have the lowest possible degree among all the bases of M P.Let~p and~q be any basis of M P with degð~pÞ6degð~qÞ.Wefirst show degðpÞ6degð~pÞ.Clearly,~p¼h11pþh12q;~q¼h21pþh22qfor some h ij2R½t ,i;j¼1;2.If h11¼0,since degðh11pÞ6degð~pÞ,it follows that degðpÞ6degð~pÞ;if h11¼0and h12¼0,then degðpÞ6degðqÞ6degð~pÞ.So there is always degðpÞ6degð~pÞ.Next we show degðqÞ6degð~qÞ.If h22¼0,since degðh22qÞ6degð~qÞ,we have degðqÞ6degð~qÞ.If h22¼0,then h12¼0,for otherwise~p and~q cannot be a basis of P.In this case,since degðh12qÞ6degð~pÞ,we have degðqÞ6degð~pÞ6degð~qÞ.So there is always degðqÞ6degð~qÞ.We have shown that p and q are a basis of M P with the lowest degrees.Hence,p and q form a l-basis of M P.(2)Given a moving line L of P,suppose L¼h1pþh2q.Since LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly independent,LVðh1pÞand LVðh2qÞdo not cancel each other;hence, degðh1pÞ6degðLÞand degðh2qÞ6degðLÞ.Then,by condition(1),p and q form a l-basis of M P.(3)Again,we just need to show that p and q have the lowest degrees possible.First note that p and q form a basis of M P since,by assumption,any moving line in M P is expressible in(6).Let~p and~q be a l-basis of M P with degð~pÞ¼l and degð~qÞ¼nÀl,where0<l6b n=2c.Because of the minimality of the degrees ofF.Chen,W.Wang/Graphical Models64(2003)368–381375 the l-basis,we have degðpÞP l.If degðpÞ>l,then degðpÞ6degðqÞ<nÀl since degðpÞþdegðqÞ¼n.By Property(6)of the l-basis in Theorem1,p¼h1~p and q¼h2~p for some h1;h22R½t .Thus h2pÀh1q¼0,that is,p and q are R½t -linearly dependent.This contradicts that p and q form a basis of M P.Thus degðpÞ¼l and degðqÞ¼nÀl,and hence,p and q are a l-basis of M P.(4)Since pÂq¼k P for some nonzero constant k,for any moving line L of PðtÞ, LÁpÂq¼LÁP 0.Hence g L¼h1pþh2q for some g;h1;h22R½t ,where GCDðg;h1;h2Þ¼1.Further,if g is not a constant,letting t0be a zero of g over the complexfield,then h1ðt0Þpðt0Þþh2ðt0Þqðt0Þ¼0,but this contradicts Property (3)of Theorem1stating that pðt0Þand qðt0Þare linearly independent for any param-eter value t0.Hence g is a nonzero constant.So we may write L¼h1pþh2q for some h1;h22R½t .Then,by condition(3)above,p and q form a l-basis of M P.(5)Similar to the argument in the proof above for condition(4),it can be shown that any moving lines L of PðtÞcan be expressed by L¼h1pþh2q with h1;h22R½t . Then,by condition(2),the proof is completed.(6)Since p and q are R½t -linearly independent moving lines of P,gðpÂqÞ¼h P for g;h2R½t ,where g;h are relatively prime.Since the components a;b;c2R½t of P are relatively prime,g must be a nonzero constant.Thusn¼degðpÞþdegðqÞP degðpÂqÞ¼degðhÞþdegðPÞ¼degðhÞþn:It follows that degðhÞ¼0.Hence,we may write pÂq¼k P for some nonzero constant k.Now,by condition(4),p and q are a l-basis of M P.(7)Since LVðpÞand LVðqÞare linearly independent,LVðpÂqÞ¼LVðpÞÂLVðqÞ¼0.It follows that pÂq¼0;thus p and q are R½t -linearly independent. Now,by condition(6),p and q form a l-basis of M P.(8)Since cxÀa;cyÀb2I¼h p;q i,similar to the proof of Property(1)of Theo-rem1,one can show that p and q are R½t -linearly independent.By condition(6),p and q are a l-basis of PðtÞ.The proof of Theorem3is completed.ÃTwo definitions for the l-basis are given in[3].Thefirst definition is for planar rational curves and equivalent to condition(6)in Theorem3above.The second def-inition is for the general case of a rational curve in R d,d P2.This second definition, when d¼2,is equivalent to thefirst one but contains a redundant condition degðpÞþdegðqÞ¼n.putation of l-basisWe present in this section a new method for computing a l-basis of a planar ra-tional curve.The conditions(2)and(3)in Theorem3will play a key role in devel-oping this algorithm.We begin with the review of some existing methods.Thefirst method for computing a l-basis of a rational curve PðtÞusing undeter-mined coefficients is described by Sederberg et al.[6].This algorithm needs Oðn3Þarithmetic operations,where n is the degree of PðtÞ.376 F.Chen,W.Wang/Graphical Models64(2003)368–381A more efficient algorithm for computing the l-basis has recently been developed by Zheng and Sederberg[7];we will call it the ZS algorithm.Given a set of three gen-erating vector polynomials of the moving line module M P,the ZS algorithm sorts all the terms of the vector polynomials in the order of their degrees and component in-dices,and exploits the observation that the leading coefficients of at least two gener-ating vector polynomials have the same basis vector;this observation enables one to reduce the degree of one component of one vector polynomial in each reduction step, until a l-basis is reached.The ZS algorithm is similar to BuchbergerÕs algorithm for computing the Gr€o ebner basis of a module,and its efficiency lies in that no more than three generators of the module M P are maintained at any moment.The com-plexity of the ZS algorithm is Oðn2Þ[7].We will present,in this paper,an improved algorithm for computing the l-basis of a planar rational curve.Our algorithm is similar to the ZS algorithm in that it also operates in the moving line module.However,based on the linear dependency of the leading coefficient vectors of the generating vector polynomials of M P,we are able to eliminate simultaneously the highest degree terms of all components of a vector poly-nomial in each reduction step,thus reducing the degrees of the polynomials more quickly than the ZS algorithm does.Moreover,our approach is conceptually simpler since it skips the need of sorting all the terms of the generating vector polynomials. In addition,the effective vector elimination scheme used makes the new algorithm easily extendable to computing the l-basis of a rational curve in higher dimensions.Based on operation count,the new algorithm also has the time complexity Oðn2Þ, but with the proportional constant about twice as small as that of the ZS algorithm. In the following we present the algorithm and analyze its time complexity.Before going on,we provide two lemmas.3.1.LemmasLemma1.The moving line module M P of a planar rational curve PðtÞ¼ðaðtÞ;bðtÞ;cðtÞÞis generated by the three vector polynomials v1;v2,and v3,where v1¼ðÀb;a;0Þ,v2¼ðÀc;0;aÞ,and v3¼ð0;c;ÀbÞ.Proof.The proof will be given by adapting the proof of Lemma1in[3].See also[7]. For completeness,we sketch the proof in the following.Since a,b,and c are relatively prime,there exist u;v;w2R½t such that uaþvbþwc¼1.Suppose that AðtÞxþBðtÞyþCðtÞ¼0is a moving line in M P. For brevity,AðtÞ,BðtÞ,and CðtÞwill be denoted by A,B,and C,respectively,in the following.Since aAþbBþcC¼0,it follows thatA¼uaAþvbAþwcA¼uðÀbBÀcCÞþvbAþwcA¼ÀbðuBÀvAÞÀcðuCÀwAÞ:Similarly,B¼aðuBÀvAÞþcðÀvCþwBÞ。