Error-Correcting Graph Isomorphism Using Decision Trees

Abstract

In this paper we present a fast algorithm for the computation of error-correcting graph isomorphisms. The new algorithm is an extension of a method for exact subgraph isomorphism detection from an input graph to a set of a priori known model graphs, which was previously developed by the authors. Similar to the original algorithm, the new method is based on the idea of creating a decision tree from the model graphs. This decision tree is compiled off-line in a preprocessing step. At run time, it is used to find all error-correcting graph isomorphisms from an input graph to any of the model graphs up to a certain degree of distortion. The main advantage of the new algorithm is that error-correcting graph isomorphism detection is guaranteed to require time that is only polynomial in terms of the size of the input graph. Furthermore, the time complexity is completely independent of the number of model graphs and the number of edges in each model graph. However, the size of the decision tree is exponential in the size of the model graphs and the degree of error. Nevertheless, practical experiments have indicated that the method can be applied to graphs containing up to 16 vertices.