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Abstract

In this paper, we study the Contiguous Art Gallery Problem, introduced by Thomas C. Shermer at the 2024 Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, a variant of the classical art gallery problem from 1973 by Victor Klee. In the contiguous variant, the input is a simple polygon \(P\), and the goal is to partition the boundary into a minimum number of polygonal chains such that each chain is visible to a guard. We present a polynomial-time real RAM algorithm, which solves the contiguous art gallery problem. Our algorithm is simple and practical, and we make a C++ implementation available. In contrast, many variations of the art gallery problem are at least NP-hard, making the contiguous variant stand out. These include the edge-covering problem, proven NP-hard by Laurentini [The Visual Computer 1999], and the classical art gallery problem, recently shown \(\exists\mathbb{R}\)-complete by Abrahamsen, Adamaszek, and Miltzow [J. ACM 2022]. Our algorithm is a greedy algorithm that repeatedly traverses the polygon's boundary. To find an optimal solution, we show that it is sufficient to traverse the polygon polynomially many times, resulting in a runtime of \(\mathcal{O}\!\left( n^7 \log n \right)\). Additionally, we provide algorithms for the restricted settings, where either the endpoints of the polygonal chains or the guards must coincide with the vertices of the polygon.

Details

1009240
Business indexing term
Identifier / keyword
Title
The Contiguous Art Gallery Problem is Solvable in Polynomial Time
Publication title
arXiv.org; Ithaca
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Dec 18, 2024
Section
Computer Science
Publisher
Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
Source
arXiv.org
Place of publication
Ithaca
Country of publication
United States
University/institution
Cornell University Library arXiv.org
e-ISSN
2331-8422
Source type
Working Paper
Language of publication
English
Document type
Working Paper
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2024-12-19
Milestone dates
2024-12-18 (Submission v1)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
19 Dec 2024
ProQuest document ID
3147264975
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/working-papers/contiguous-art-gallery-problem-is-solvable/docview/3147264975/se-2?accountid=208611
Full text outside of ProQuest
Copyright
© 2024. This work is published under http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2025-01-14
Database
2 databases
  • ProQuest One Academic
  • ProQuest One Academic