Geometry of Graph Edit Distance Spaces

In this paper we study the geometry of graph spaces endowed with a special class of graph edit distances. The focus is on geometrical results useful for statistical pattern recognition. The main result is the Graph Representation Theorem. It states that a graph is a point in some geometrical space, called orbit space. Orbit spaces are well investigated and easier to explore than the original graph space. We derive a number of geometrical results from the orbit space representation, translate them to the graph space, and indicate their significance and usefulness in statistical pattern recognition.