We introduce an efficient algorithm for determining a suitable projection order for performing cylindrical algebraic decomposition. Our algorithm is motivated by a statistical analysis of comprehensive test set computations. This analysis introduces several measures on both the projection sets and the entire computation, which turn out to be highly correlated. The statistical data also shows that the orders generated by our algorithm are significantly close to optimal.

This work was partially supported by the RAAG European RTNetwork RAAG, contract no. HPRN-CT-2001-00271.