Visibility and intersection problems in plane geometry

Abstract

We develop new data structures for solving various visibility and intersection problems about a simple polygonP onn vertices. Among our results are a simpleO(n logn)-time algorithm for computing the illuminated subpolygon ofP from a luminous side, and anO(logn)-time algorithm for determining which side ofP is first hit by a bullet fired from a point in a certain direction. The latter method requires preprocessing onP which takes timeO(n logn) and spaceO(n). The two main tools in attacking these problems are geometric duality on the two-sided plane and fractional cascading.