How to walk your dog in the mountains with no magic leash

  • Authors:
  • Sariel Har-Peled;Amir Nayyeri;Mohammad Salavatipour;Anastasios Sidiropoulos

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Illinois. Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA;University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA;University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada;Toyota Technological Institute, Chicago, IL, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the twenty-eighth annual symposium on Computational geometry
  • Year:
  • 2012

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

We describe a O(log n)-approximation algorithm for computing the homotopic Frechet distance between two polygonal curves that lie on the boundary of a triangulated topological disk. Prior to this work, algorithms where known only for curves on the Euclidean plane with polygonal obstacles. A key technical ingredient in our analysis is a O(log n)-approximation algorithm for computing the minimum height of a homotopy between two curves. No algorithms were previously known for approximating this parameter. Surprisingly, it is not even known if computing either the homotopic Frechet distance, or the minimum height of a homotopy, is in NP.