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External watchman routes

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Abstract

We consider the problem of finding a shortest watchman route from which the exterior of a polygon is visible (external watchman route). We present an O (n 4 log logn) algorithm to find shortest external watchman routes for simple polygons by transforming the external watchman route problem to a set of internal watchman route problems. Also, we present faster external watchman route algorithms for special cases. These include optimal O (n) algorithms for convex, monotone, star and spiral polygons and an O (n log logn) algorithm for rectilinear polygons.

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This work was supported in part by a grant from Texas Instruments, Inc. to S. Ntafos

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Ntafos, S., Gewali, L. External watchman routes. The Visual Computer 10, 474–483 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01910637

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