Encoding 2-D Range Maximum Queries

Abstract: We consider the \emph{two-dimensional range maximum query (2D-RMQ)} problem: given an array $A$ of ordered values, to pre-process it so that we can find the position of the smallest element in the sub-matrix defined by a (user-specified) range of rows and range of columns. We focus on determining the \emph{effective} entropy of 2D-RMQ, i.e., how many bits are needed to encode $A$ so that 2D-RMQ queries can be answered \emph{without} access to $A$. We give tight upper and lower bounds on the expected effective entropy for the case when $A$ contains independent identically-distributed random values, and new upper and lower bounds for arbitrary $A$, for the case when $A$ contains few rows. The latter results improve upon previous upper and lower bounds by Brodal et al. (ESA 2010). In some cases we also give data structures whose space usage is close to the effective entropy and answer 2D-RMQ queries rapidly.