Cutting Polygons into Small Pieces with Chords: Laser-Based Localization

Motivated by indoor localization by tripwire lasers, we study the problem of cutting a polygon into small-size pieces, using the chords of the polygon. Several versions are considered, depending on the definition of the "size" of a piece. In particular, we consider the area, the diameter, and the radius of the largest inscribed circle as a measure of the size of a piece. We also consider different objectives, either minimizing the maximum size of a piece for a given number of chords, or minimizing the number of chords that achieve a given size threshold for the pieces. We give hardness results for polygons with holes and approximation algorithms for multiple variants of the problem

Large bichromatic point sets admit empty monochromatic 4-gons

We consider a variation of a problem stated by Erd˝os and Szekeres in 1935 about the existence of a number fES(k) such that any set S of at least fES(k) points in general position in the plane has a subset of k points that are the vertices of a convex k-gon. In our setting the points of S are colored, and we say that a (not necessarily convex) spanned polygon is monochromatic if all its vertices have the same color. Moreover, a polygon is called empty if it does not contain any points of S in its interior. We show that any bichromatic set of n ≥ 5044 points in R2 in general position determines at least one empty, monochromatic quadrilateral (and thus linearly many).Postprint (published version

On Euclidean Steiner (1+?)-Spanners

Lightness and sparsity are two natural parameters for Euclidean (1+?)-spanners. Classical results show that, when the dimension d ? ? and ? > 0 are constant, every set S of n points in d-space admits an (1+?)-spanners with O(n) edges and weight proportional to that of the Euclidean MST of S. Tight bounds on the dependence on ? > 0 for constant d ? ? have been established only recently. Le and Solomon (FOCS 2019) showed that Steiner points can substantially improve the lightness and sparsity of a (1+?)-spanner. They gave upper bounds of O?(?^{-(d+1)/2}) for the minimum lightness in dimensions d ? 3, and O?(?^{-(d-1))/2}) for the minimum sparsity in d-space for all d ? 1. They obtained lower bounds only in the plane (d = 2). Le and Solomon (ESA 2020) also constructed Steiner (1+?)-spanners of lightness O(?^{-1}log?) in the plane, where ? ? ?(log n) is the spread of S, defined as the ratio between the maximum and minimum distance between a pair of points. In this work, we improve several bounds on the lightness and sparsity of Euclidean Steiner (1+?)-spanners. Using a new geometric analysis, we establish lower bounds of ?(?^{-d/2}) for the lightness and ?(?^{-(d-1)/2}) for the sparsity of such spanners in Euclidean d-space for all d ? 2. We use the geometric insight from our lower bound analysis to construct Steiner (1+?)-spanners of lightness O(?^{-1}log n) for n points in Euclidean plane

Light Euclidean Steiner Spanners in the Plane

Lightness is a fundamental parameter for Euclidean spanners; it is the ratio of the spanner weight to the weight of the minimum spanning tree of a finite set of points in $\mathbb{R}^d$. In a recent breakthrough, Le and Solomon (2019) established the precise dependencies on $\varepsilon>0$ and $d\in \mathbb{N}$ of the minimum lightness of $(1+\varepsilon)$-spanners, and observed that additional Steiner points can substantially improve the lightness. Le and Solomon (2020) constructed Steiner $(1+\varepsilon)$-spanners of lightness $O(\varepsilon^{-1}\log\Delta)$ in the plane, where $\Delta\geq \Omega(\sqrt{n})$ is the \emph{spread} of the point set, defined as the ratio between the maximum and minimum distance between a pair of points. They also constructed spanners of lightness $\tilde{O}(\varepsilon^{-(d+1)/2})$ in dimensions $d\geq 3$. Recently, Bhore and T\'{o}th (2020) established a lower bound of $\Omega(\varepsilon^{-d/2})$ for the lightness of Steiner $(1+\varepsilon)$-spanners in $\mathbb{R}^d$, for $d\ge 2$. The central open problem in this area is to close the gap between the lower and upper bounds in all dimensions $d\geq 2$. In this work, we show that for every finite set of points in the plane and every $\varepsilon>0$, there exists a Euclidean Steiner $(1+\varepsilon)$-spanner of lightness $O(\varepsilon^{-1})$; this matches the lower bound for $d=2$. We generalize the notion of shallow light trees, which may be of independent interest, and use directional spanners and a modified window partitioning scheme to achieve a tight weight analysis.Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures. A 17-page extended abstract will appear in the Proceedings of the 37th International Symposium on Computational Geometr