Pointspointers

Pointspointers is a term used in computer science to describe data constructs that manage references to point objects, typically coordinates in two- or three-dimensional space. In practice, a pointspointers collection stores pointers or references to Point instances rather than the Points themselves, enabling efficient sharing and indirection without duplicating data.

Pointspointers are commonly used in geometric processing, computer graphics, and mesh representations, where many operations refer to the same points. By using pointers rather than copies, applications can reduce memory usage and improve performance when manipulating large point clouds or meshes. They also simplify update patterns when a single Point is shared among multiple entities, such as vertices shared by several polygons.

Implementation choices affect safety and performance. Raw pointers require careful lifetime management to avoid dangling references. Smart pointers, such as unique_ptr, shared_ptr, or Rc/Arc in various languages, provide ownership and reference counting semantics that help prevent memory errors. Nullability and aliasing, cache locality, and the cost of dereferencing pointers are important considerations.

In code, a pointspointers structure might be a container of Point pointers, an array of pointers, or a generic collection of references. In C++, for example, a vector<Point*> or a vector<shared_ptr<Point>> is common; in managed languages, a list of references to Point objects serves a similar role. The concept also appears in data interchange formats that reference points by identifier rather than embedding coordinates.

See also: Point, Pointer (data type), Point cloud, Mesh, Smart pointer.