A New Algorithm for Euclidean Shortest Path of Visiting Segments in a Polygon

Let s and t be two points on the boundary of a simple polygon, how to compute the Euclidean shortest path between s and t which visits a sequence of segments given in the simple polygon is the problem to be discussed, especially, the situation of the adjacent segments intersect is the focus of our study. In this paper, we first analyze the degeneration applying rubber-band algorithm to solve the problem. Then based on rubber-band algorithm, we present an improved algorithm which can solve the degeneration by the method of crossing over two segments to deal with intersection and in our algorithm the adjacent segments order can be changed when they intersect. Particularly, we have implemented the algorithm and have applied a large of test data to test it. The experiments demonstrate that our algorithm is correct and efficient, and it has the same time complexity as the rubber-band algorithm.