Related papers: Computational Geometry Column 39
We consider the planar two-center problem for a convex polygon: given a convex polygon in the plane, find two congruent disks of minimum radius whose union contains the polygon. We present an $O(n\log n)$-time algorithm for the two-center…
We call a continuous path of polygons decreasing if the convex hulls of the polygons form a decreasing family of sets. For an arbitrary polygon of more than three vertices, we characterize the polygons contained in it that can be reached by…
We solve a problem of R. Nandakumar by proving that there is no tiling of the plane with pairwise noncongruent triangles of equal area and equal perimeter. We also show that no convex polygon with more than three sides can be tiled with…
How can a stack of identical blocks be arranged to extend beyond the edge of a table as far as possible? We consider a generalization of this classic puzzle to blocks that differ in width and mass. Despite the seemingly simple premise, we…
In this paper we investigate the discrete version of the classical hanging chain problem. We generalize the problem, by allowing for arbitrary mass and length of each link. We show that the shape of the chain can be obtained by solving a…
We discuss the possibility of the existence of finite algorithms that may give distinct knot classes. In particular we present two attempts for such algorithms which seem promising, one based on knot projections on a plane, the other on…
The exact complexity of geometric cuts and bisections is the longstanding open problem including even the dimension one. In this paper, we resolve this problem for dimension one (the real line) by designing an exact polynomial time…
A subset of Q^n is called semilinear (or piecewise linear) if it is Boolean combination of linear half-spaces. We study the computational complexity of the constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) over the rationals when all the constraints…
The problem of classifying linear systems of conics in projective planes dates back at least to Jordan, who classified pencils (one-dimensional systems) of conics over $\mathbb{C}$ and $\mathbb{R}$ in 1906--1907. The analogous problem for…
Unfolding a convex polyhedron into a simple planar polygon is a well-studied problem. In this paper, we study the limits of unfoldability by studying nonconvex polyhedra with the same combinatorial structure as convex polyhedra. In…
We consider a variant of the art gallery problem where all guards are limited to seeing to the right inside a monotone polygon. We call such guards: half-guards. We provide a polynomial-time approximation for point guarding the entire…
With the popularity of drone technologies, aerial photography has become prevalent in many daily scenarios such as environment monitoring, structure inspection, law enforcement etc. A central challenge in this domain is the efficient…
In this paper, we consider the problem of determining in polynomial time whether a given planar point set $P$ of $n$ points admits 4-connected triangulation. We propose a necessary and sufficient condition for recognizing $P$, and present…
We consider the problem of finding and enumerating polyominos that can be folded into multiple non-isomorphic boxes. While several computational approaches have been proposed, including SAT, randomized algorithms, and decision diagrams,…
In this paper we review nine previous proposed and solved problems of elementary 2D geometry, and we extend them either from triangles to polygons or polyhedrons, or from circles to spheres (from 2D-space to 3D-space) and make some…
The input to the NP-hard Point Line Cover problem (PLC) consists of a set $P$ of $n$ points on the plane and a positive integer $k$, and the question is whether there exists a set of at most $k$ lines which pass through all points in $P$. A…
We show that no minimal vertex triangulation of a closed, connected, orientable 2-manifold of genus 6 admits a polyhedral embedding in R^3. We also provide examples of minimal vertex triangulations of closed, connected, orientable…
The geometric bottleneck Steiner network problem on a set of vertices $X$ embedded in a normed plane requires one to construct a graph $G$ spanning $X$ and a variable set of $k\geq 0$ additional points, such that the length of the longest…
In 1991, Edelsbrunner and Tan gave an O(n^2) algorithm for finding the MinMax Length triangulation of a set of points in the plane. In this paper we resolve one of the open problems stated in that paper, by showing that finding a MaxMin…
A closed plane meander of order $n$ is a closed self-avoiding curve intersecting an infinite line $2n$ times. Meanders are considered distinct up to any smooth deformation leaving the line fixed. We have developed an improved algorithm,…