Delta-Square: A Distance-Aware Key Space for Nearest Neighbor Search
Abstract
We introduce Delta-square, a new coordinate encoding whose prefix mismatch depth forms a lower bound of the L1 distance. This property gives Delta-square a geometric structure that Z-order fundamentally lacks. Through wavefront visualizations and nearest-neighbor search experiments, we demonstrate that Delta-square provides stable, distance-aligned behavior while Z-order exhibits chaotic and non-metric exploration.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Algorithms and Data Compression
Data Management and Algorithms
Advanced Image and Video Retrieval Techniques
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 15 March 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Preprint