An n-dimensional box represents rectangular region in an n-dimensional space. Jive stores such a box in a Vector containing the coordinates of the two corner points: the first n entries store the coordinates of the first corner point, while the last n vector entries store the coordinates of the second corner points. By convention, the first corner point is the one with the smallest coordinates and the second corner point is the one with the largest coordinates. For instance, the vector

[ 2.0, 9.0, 3.0, 11.0 ]

represents a two-dimensional box with corner points (2.0,9.0) and (3.0,11.0).

An array of boxes is stored column-wise in a Matrix. That is, if the matrix boxes stores a set of boxes, then the expression boxes(ALL,j) yields the vector containing the corner points of the j-th box.

The size of a box is defined as the Euclidean distance between its two corner points, while the center of a box is defined as the point located halfway the two corner points. In other words, if x and y denote the two corner points of a box, then its size is given by ||x - y|| and its center is located at (x + y)/2.