A Simple Shortest Path Algorithm for L-visible Polygons

The shortest path between two points inside a simple polygon P is a minimum-length path among all paths connecting them which don't pass by the exterior of P. A linear time algorithm for computing the shortest path in a general simple polygon requires triangulating a given polygon as preprocessing. The linear time triangulating is known to very complex to understand and implement it. It is also inefficient in case that the input without very large size is given because its time complexity has a big constant factor. Two points of a polygon P are said to be L-visible from each other if they can be joined by a simple chain of at most two rectilinear line segments contained in P completely. An L-visible polygon P is a polygon such that there is a point from which every point of P is L-visible. We present the customized optimal shortest path algorithm for an L-visible polygon. Our algorithm doesn't require triangulating as preprocessing and consists of simple procedures such as construction of convex hulls and operations for convex polygons, so it is easy to implement and runs very fast in linear time.