Abstract
We consider the generalized minimum Manhattan network problem (GMMN). The input to this problem is a set R of n pairs of terminals, which are points in \(\mathbb {R}^2\). The goal is to find a minimum-length rectilinear network that connects every pair in R by a Manhattan path, that is, a path of axis-parallel line segments whose total length equals the pair’s Manhattan distance. This problem is a natural generalization of the extensively studied minimum Manhattan network problem (MMN) in which R consists of all possible pairs of terminals. Another important special case is the well-known rectilinear Steiner arborescence problem (RSA). As a generalization of these problems, GMMN is NP-hard. No approximation algorithms are known for general GMMN. We obtain an \(O(\log n)\)-approximation algorithm for GMMN. Our solution is based on a stabbing technique, a novel way of attacking Manhattan network problems. Some parts of our algorithm generalize to higher dimensions, yielding a simple \(O(\log ^{d+1} n)\)-approximation algorithm for the problem in arbitrary fixed dimension d. As a corollary, we obtain an exponential improvement upon the previously best \(O(n^\varepsilon )\)-ratio for MMN in d dimensions (ESA 2011). En route, we show that an existing \(O(\log n)\)-approximation algorithm for 2D-RSA generalizes to higher dimensions.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Michael Kaufmann for his hospitality and his enthusiasm during our respective stays in Tübingen. We thank Esther Arkin, Alon Efrat, Joe Mitchell, and Andreas Spillner for discussions.
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A preliminary version of this paper appeared in Proc. 24th International Symposium on Algorithms and Complexity (ISAAC’13), volume 8283 of Lect. Notes Comput. Sci., pp. 722–732. This work was supported by the ESF EuroGIGA project GraDR (DFG Grant Wo 758/5-1).
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Das, A., Fleszar, K., Kobourov, S. et al. Approximating the Generalized Minimum Manhattan Network Problem. Algorithmica 80, 1170–1190 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00453-017-0298-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00453-017-0298-0