MPI-I-97-1-014

In these notes, which were originally written as lecture notes for Advanced School on Algorithmic Foundations of Geographic Information Systems, CISM, held in Udine, Italy, in September, 1996, we discuss issues related to the design of a computational geometry algorithms library. We discuss modularity and generality, efficiency and robustness, and ease of use. We argue that exact geometric computation is the most promising approach to ensure robustness in a geometric algorithms library. Many of the presented concepts have been developed jointly in the kernel design group of CGAL and/or in the geometry group of LEDA. However, the view held in these notes is a personal view, not the official view of CGAL.