Choi, Myung GeolJu, EunjungChang, Jung-WooLee, JeheeKim, Young J.2015-02-232015-02-2320091467-8659https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2009.01554.xThe standard C/C++ implementation of a spatial partitioning data structure, such as octree and quadtree, is often inefficient in terms of storage requirements particularly when the memory overhead for maintaining parent-to-child pointers is significant with respect to the amount of actual data in each tree node. In this work, we present a novel data structure that implements uniform spatial partitioning without storing explicit parent-to-child pointer links. Our linkless tree encodes the storage locations of subdivided nodes using perfect hashing while retaining important properties of uniform spatial partitioning trees, such as coarse-to-fine hierarchical representation, efficient storage usage, and efficient random accessibility. We demonstrate the performance of our linkless trees using image compression and path planning examples.10.1111/j.1467-8659.2009.01554.x1773-1780