The two-watchman route problem is that of computing a pair of closed tours in an environment so that the two tours together see the whole environment and some length measure on the two tours is minimized. Two standard measures are: the minmax measure, where we want the tours where the longest of them has smallest length, and the minsum measure, where we want the tours for which the sum of their lengths is the smallest. It is known that computing a minmax two-watchman route is NP-hard for simple rectilinear polygons and thus also for simple polygons. Also, any c-approximation algorithm for the minmax two-watchman route is automatically a 2c-approximation algorithm for the minsum two-watchman route. We exhibit two constant factor approximation algorithms for computing minmax two-watchman routes in simple polygons with approximation factors 5.969 and 11.939, having running times O ( n 8 ) \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$O(n<^>8)$$\end{document} and O ( n 4 ) \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$O(n<^>4)$$\end{document} respectively, where n is the number of vertices of the polygon. We also use the same techniques to obtain a 6.922-approximation for the fixed two-watchman route problem running in O ( n 2 ) \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$O(n<^>2)$$\end{document} time, i.e., when two starting points of the two tours are given as input.

We study the ART GALLERY Problem under k-hop visibility in polyominoes. In this visibility model, two unit squares of a polyomino can see each other if and only if the shortest path between the respective vertices in the dual graph of the polyomino has length at most k. In this paper, we show that the VC dimension of this problem is 3 in simple polyominoes, and 4 in polyominoes with holes. Furthermore, we provide a reduction from PLANAR MONOTONE 3SAT, thereby showing that the problem is NP-complete even in thin polyominoes (i.e., polyominoes that do not a contain a 2 x 2 block of cells). Complementarily, we present a linear-time 4-approximation algorithm for simple 2-thin polyominoes (which do not contain a 3 x 3 block of cells) for all k is an element of N.

The online bin covering problem is: given an input sequence of items find a placement of the items in the maximum number of bins such that the sum of the items' sizes in each bin is at least 1. Boyar et al. [3] present a strategy that with O(log log n) bits of advice, where n is the length of the input sequence, achieves a competitive ratio of 8/15 approximate to 0.5333 ... . We show that with a strengthened analysis and some minor improvements, the same strategy achieves the significantly improved competitive ratio of 135/242 approximate to 0.5578 ... , still using O(log log n) bits of advice.

We study the problem of determining the complexity of the lower envelope of a collection of n geometric objects. For collections of rays; unit length line segments; and collections of unit squares to which we apply at most two transformations from translation, rotation, and scaling, we prove a complexity of Θ(n). If all three transformations are applied to unit squares, then we show the complexity becomes Θ(nα(n)), where α(n) is the slowly growing inverse of Ackermann’s function.

A k-transmitter g in a polygon P, with n vertices, k-sees a point p ∈ P if the line segment gp intersects P’s boundary at most k times. In the k-Transmitter Watchman Route Problem we aim to minimize the length of a k-transmitter watchman route along which every point in the polygon—or a discrete set of points in the interior of the polygon—is k-seen. We show that the k-Transmitter Watchman Route Problem for a discrete set of points is NP-hard for histograms, uni-monotone polygons, and star-shaped polygons given a fixed starting point. For histograms and uni-monotone polygons it is also NP-hard without a fixed starting point. Moreover, none of these versions can be approximated to within a factor c · log n, for any constant c > 0.

We consider the watchman route problem for a k-transmitter watchman: standing at point p in a polygon P, the watchman can see �∈� if ��¯ intersects P’s boundary at most k times—q is k-visible to p. Traveling along the k-transmitter watchman route, either all points in P or a discrete set of points �⊂� must be k-visible to the watchman. We aim for minimizing the length of the k-transmitter watchman route.

We show that even in simple polygons the shortest k-transmitter watchman route problem for a discrete set of points �⊂� is NP-complete and cannot be approximated to within a logarithmic factor (unless P=NP), both with and without a given starting point. Moreover, we present a polylogarithmic approximation for the k-transmitter watchman route problem for a given starting point and �⊂� with approximation ratio �(log2⁡(|�|⋅�)log⁡log⁡(|�|⋅�)log⁡|�|) (with |�|=�).

We present an O(n² · min{m, n}) time and O(n · min{m, n}) storage algorithm to compute the minsum set of m watchmen routes given their starting points in a Stiegl polygon ― a staircase polygon where the floor solely consists of one horizontal and one vertical edge ― with n vertices.

Online routing in a planar embedded graph is central to a number of fields and has been studied extensively in the literature. For most planar graphs no O (1)-competitive online routing algorithm exists. A notable exception is the Delaunay triangulation for which Bose and Morin (SIAM J Comput 33(4):937-951, 2004) showed that there exists an online routing algorithm that is O(1)-competitive. However, a Delaunay triangulation can have Omega (n) vertex degree and a total weight that is a linear factor greater than the weight of a minimum spanning tree. We show a simple construction, given a set V of n points in the Euclidean plane, of a planar geometric graph on V that has small weight (within a constant factor of the weight of a minimum spanning tree on V), constant degree, and that admits a local routing strategy that is O (1)-competitive. Moreover, the technique used to bound the weight works generally for any planar geometric graph whilst preserving the admission of an O (1)-competitive routing strategy.

In this paper, we consider the variant of the art gallery problem where the input polygon is a staircase polygon. Previous works on this problem gave a 2-approximation for point guarding a staircase polygon (where guards can be placed anywhere in the interior of the polygon and we wish to guard the entire polygon). It is still unknown whether this point guarding variant is NP-hard. In this paper we consider the vertex guarding problem, where guards are only allowed to be placed at the vertices of the polygon, and we wish to guard only the vertices of the polygon. We show that this problem is NP-hard, and we give a polynomial-time 2-approximation algorithm. 

We study the art gallery problem for opposing halfguards: guards that can either see to their left or to theirright only. We present art gallery theorems, show thatthe problem is NP-hard in monotone polygons, presentapproximation algorithms for spiral and staircase poly-gons, and show that the location of half guards in 2-guardable polygons is not restricted to extensions.