License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0)
When quoting this document, please refer to the following
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2017.3
URN: urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-71946
URL: http://dagstuhl.sunsite.rwth-aachen.de/volltexte/2017/7194/
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Abrahamsen, Mikkel ; Adamaszek, Anna ; Miltzow, Tillmann

Irrational Guards are Sometimes Needed

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LIPIcs-SoCG-2017-3.pdf (3 MB)

Abstract

In this paper we study the art gallery problem, which is one of the fundamental problems in computational geometry. The objective is to place a minimum number of guards inside a simple polygon so that the guards together can see the whole polygon. We say that a guard at position x sees a point y if the line segment xy is contained in the polygon.

Despite an extensive study of the art gallery problem, it remained an open question whether there are polygons given by integer coordinates that require guard positions with irrational coordinates in any optimal solution. We give a positive answer to this question by constructing a monotone polygon with integer coordinates that can be guarded by three guards only when we allow to place the guards at points with irrational coordinates. Otherwise, four guards are needed. By extending this example, we show that for every n, there is a polygon which can be guarded by 3n guards with irrational coordinates but needs 4n guards if the coordinates have to be rational. Subsequently, we show that there are rectilinear polygons given by integer coordinates that require guards with irrational coordinates in any optimal solution.

BibTeX - Entry

@InProceedings{abrahamsen_et_al:LIPIcs:2017:7194,
  author =	{Mikkel Abrahamsen and Anna Adamaszek and Tillmann Miltzow},
  title =	{{Irrational Guards are Sometimes Needed}},
  booktitle =	{33rd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2017)},
  pages =	{3:1--3:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-038-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{77},
  editor =	{Boris Aronov and Matthew J. Katz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2017/7194},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-71946},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2017.3},
  annote =	{Keywords: art gallery problem, computational geometry, irrational numbers}
}

Keywords: art gallery problem, computational geometry, irrational numbers
Collection: 33rd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2017)
Issue Date: 2017
Date of publication: 20.06.2017

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