The objective of this paper is to show how the recently proposed method by
Giusti, Heintz, Morais, Morgenstern, Pardo \cite{gihemorpar} can be applied to
a case of real polynomial equation solving. Our main result concerns the
problem of finding one representative point for each connected component of a
real bounded smooth hypersurface. The algorithm in \cite{gihemorpar} yields a
method for symbolically solving a zero-dimensional polynomial equation system
in the affine (and toric) case. Its main feature is the use of adapted data
structure: Arithmetical networks and straight-line programs. The algorithm
solves any affine zero-dimensional equation system in non-uniform sequential
time that is polynomial in the length of the input description and an
adequately defined {\em affine degree} of the equation system. Replacing the
affine degree of the equation system by a suitably defined {\em real degree} of
certain polar varieties associated to the input equation, which describes the
hypersurface under consideration, and using straight-line program codification
of the input and intermediate results, we obtain a method for the problem
introduced above that is polynomial in the input length and the real degree.Comment: Late
