arXiv subjects

Shouvik Mondal

Publications and source records attributed to Shouvik Mondal.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Witness Set in Weak Visibility Polygons is Polynomial-Time Solvable

In the classical Art Gallery Problem (AGP), guards are placed in a polygon so that together they see every point. The Witness Set Problem (WSP), introduced by Amit, Mitchell, and Packer, is a natural dual to the AGP. In this paper, we study the WSP in weak visibility polygons (WVPs), the simple polygons in which every point is seen from some point of one fixed edge. A witness set is a set of points whose visibility regions are pairwise disjoint, so that no single guard sees two of them. A maximum witness set, therefore, lower-bounds the guard number. Exact polynomial-time algorithms for the WSP are known only for monotone mountains, a proper subclass of WVPs. We give the first exact polynomial-time algorithms for the WSP in WVPs, in two settings. In the Discrete Witness Set Problem (DiscWSP), the witnesses come from a given set of $m$ points, and we find a maximum witness subset in $O(n + m \log(n+m))$ time on an $n$-vertex polygon. The algorithm rests on a structural fact: the visibility intersection graph of a WVP, in which two points are adjacent if their visibility regions intersect, is a trapezoid graph, that is, an intersection graph of trapezoids between two parallel lines. Moreover, the class of these graphs properly contains the interval graphs and the permutation graphs, which may be of independent interest in graph theory. We also prove an $Ω(n \log n)$ lower bound in the algebraic decision-tree model for instances with $m = Θ(n)$, so our algorithm for DiscWSP is optimum. In the Continuous Witness Set Problem (ContWSP), a witness may be any point of the polygon, and we give an exact algorithm running in $O(n \log n + ρ^{2}(n + ρ^{2}))$ time, where $ρ$ is the number of reflex vertices.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2026

Perfectly Guarding Straits: Exact Algorithms for Weak Visibility Polygons

The Art Gallery Problem (AGP) asks for the fewest guards that see all of a simple polygon. It is $\exists\mathbb{R}$-complete, hence NP-hard. We show that for a particular class of polygons, confining guards to a single edge makes AGP exactly and efficiently solvable. We call this the Strait Guarding Problem (SGP). Its input is a weak visibility polygon (WVP): a simple polygon where every point is seen from some point of one fixed edge, the base. SGP places the fewest guards on the base that jointly see the whole polygon. First, a structural fact: guards on the base edge that cover the boundary already cover the entire interior, turning a two-dimensional covering problem into a one-dimensional one. Our main result is the Witness-Guard Algorithm, which solves SGP exactly in $O((n + \mathrm{OPT} \cdot ρ)(\log n + \log \mathrm{OPT}))$ time, where $ρ$ is the number of reflex vertices in the WVP and OPT is the minimum number of guards. It is output-sensitive and certifies optimality by a witness set of size OPT derived from its output. We also study the guarding-the-vertex version and prove a tight $Θ(n \log n)$ bound, with the lower bound following from Sorting. As a corollary of SGP, we obtain two results for altitude terrain guarding (ATG), a special case that SGP generalizes. We give a linear-time perfect-guarding algorithm, improving the previous $O(n^2 \log n)$ bound of Daescu, Friedrichs, Malik, Polishchuk and Schmidt. We also resolve their problem on the minimum guarding altitude, in $O(nk + k^2 \log k)$ time, improving on the $O(k^2 λ_{k-1}(n) \log n)$ bound of Kang, Kim and Ahn.

cs.CG↗