On Distortion of Raster-Based Least-Cost Corridors

Abstract

Given a grid of cells each having a cost value, a variant of the least-cost path problem seeks a corridor—represented by a swath of cells rather than a sequence of cells—connecting two terminuses such that its total accumulated cost is minimized. While it is widely known that raster-based least-cost paths are subject to three types of distortion, i.e., deviation, distortion, and proximity, little is known about potential distortion of their corridor counterparts. This paper studies a raster model of the least-cost corridor problem and analyses its solution in terms of each type of distortion. It is found that raster-based least-cost corridors, too, are subject to all three types of distortion but in different ways: elongation distortion is always persistent, deviation distortion can be substantially reduced, and proximity distortion can be essentially eliminated.