Steiner point (computational geometry)

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Example of Steiner points (in red) added to a triangulation to improve the quality of triangles. Steiner points example.png
Example of Steiner points (in red) added to a triangulation to improve the quality of triangles.

In computational geometry, a Steiner point is a point that is not part of the input to a geometric optimization problem but is added during the solution of the problem, to create a better solution than would be possible from the original points alone.

The name of these points comes from the Steiner tree problem, named after Jakob Steiner, in which the goal is to connect the input points by a network of minimum total length. If the input points alone are used as endpoints of the network edges, then the shortest network is their minimum spanning tree. However, shorter networks can often be obtained by adding Steiner points, and using both the new points and the input points as edge endpoints. [1]

Another problem that uses Steiner points is Steiner triangulation. The goal is to partition an input (such as a point set or polygon) into triangles, meeting edge-to-edge. Both input points and Steiner points may be used as triangle vertices. [2]

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A covering of a polygon is a set of primitive units whose union equals the polygon. A polygon covering problem is a problem of finding a covering with a smallest number of units for a given polygon. This is an important class of problems in computational geometry. There are many different polygon covering problems, depending on the type of polygon being covered and on the types of units allowed in the covering. An example polygon covering problem is: given a rectilinear polygon, find a smallest set of squares whose union equals the polygon.

A partition of a polygon is a set of primitive units, which do not overlap and whose union equals the polygon. A polygon partition problem is a problem of finding a partition which is minimal in some sense, for example a partition with a smallest number of units or with units of smallest total side-length.

References

  1. Hwang, F. K.; Richards, D. S.; Winter, P. (1992), The Steiner Tree Problem, Annals of Discrete Mathematics, 53, Elsevier, ISBN   0-444-89098-X .
  2. de Berg, Mark; van Kreveld, Marc; Overmars, Mark; Schwarzkopf, Otfried (2000), Computational Geometry: Algorithms and Applications (2nd ed.), Springer, p. 293, ISBN   9783540656203