On k-Convex Polygons

We introduce a notion of $k$-convexity and explore polygons in the plane that have this property. Polygons which are \mbox{$k$-convex} can be triangulated with fast yet simple algorithms. However, recognizing them in general is a 3SUM-hard problem. We give a characterization of \mbox{$2$-convex} polygons, a particularly interesting class, and show how to recognize them in \mbox{$O(n \log n)$} time. A description of their shape is given as well, which leads to Erd\H{o}s-Szekeres type results regarding subconfigurations of their vertex sets. Finally, we introduce the concept of generalized geometric permutations, and show that their number can be exponential in the number of \mbox{$2$-convex} objects considered.Comment: 23 pages, 19 figure

Online Exploration of Polygons with Holes

We study online strategies for autonomous mobile robots with vision to explore unknown polygons with at most h holes. Our main contribution is an (h+c_0)!-competitive strategy for such polygons under the assumption that each hole is marked with a special color, where c_0 is a universal constant. The strategy is based on a new hybrid approach. Furthermore, we give a new lower bound construction for small h.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, submitted to WAOA 201

Threadable Curves

We define a plane curve to be threadable if it can rigidly pass through a point-hole in a line L without otherwise touching L. Threadable curves are in a sense generalizations of monotone curves. We have two main results. The first is a linear-time algorithm for deciding whether a polygonal curve is threadable---O(n) for a curve of n vertices---and if threadable, finding a sequence of rigid motions to thread it through a hole. We also sketch an argument that shows that the threadability of algebraic curves can be decided in time polynomial in the degree of the curve. The second main result is an O(n polylog n)-time algorithm for deciding whether a 3D polygonal curve can thread through hole in a plane in R^3, and if so, providing a description of the rigid motions that achieve the threading.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, 12 references. v2: Revised with brief addendum after Mikkel Abrahamsen pointed us to a relevant reference on "sweepable polygons." v3: Major revisio

Partitioning Graph Drawings and Triangulated Simple Polygons into Greedily Routable Regions

A greedily routable region (GRR) is a closed subset of $\mathbb R^2$, in which each destination point can be reached from each starting point by choosing the direction with maximum reduction of the distance to the destination in each point of the path. Recently, Tan and Kermarrec proposed a geographic routing protocol for dense wireless sensor networks based on decomposing the network area into a small number of interior-disjoint GRRs. They showed that minimum decomposition is NP-hard for polygons with holes. We consider minimum GRR decomposition for plane straight-line drawings of graphs. Here, GRRs coincide with self-approaching drawings of trees, a drawing style which has become a popular research topic in graph drawing. We show that minimum decomposition is still NP-hard for graphs with cycles, but can be solved optimally for trees in polynomial time. Additionally, we give a 2-approximation for simple polygons, if a given triangulation has to be respected.Comment: full version of a paper appearing in ISAAC 201

Generating Kernel Aware Polygons

Problems dealing with the generation of random polygons has important applications for evaluating the performance of algorithms on polygonal domain. We review existing algorithms for generating random polygons. We present an algorithm for generating polygons admitting visibility properties. In particular, we propose an algorithm for generating polygons admitting large size kernels. We also present experimental results on generating such polygons

Stretchability of Star-Like Pseudo-Visibility Graphs

We present advances on the open problem of characterizing vertex-edge visibility graphs (ve-graphs), reduced by results of O\u27Rourke and Streinu to a stretchability question for pseudo-polygons. We introduce star-like pseudo-polygons as a special subclass containing all the known instances of non-stretchable pseudo-polygons. We give a complete combinatorial characterization and a linear-time decision procedure for star-like pseudo-polygon stretchability and star-like ve-graph recognition. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first problem in computational geometry for which a combinatorial characterization was found by first isolating the oriented matroid substructure and then separately solving the stretchability question. It is also the first class (as opposed to isolated examples) of oriented matroids for which an efficient stretchability decision procedure based on combinatorial criteria is given. The difficulty of the general stretchability problem implied by Mnev\u27s Universality Theorem makes this a result of independent interest in the theory of oriented matroids