A new algorithm for shortest paths among obstacles in the plane

We introduce a new algorithm for computing Euclidean shortest paths in the plane in the presence of polygonal obstacles. In particular, for a given start points, we build a planar subdivision (ashortest path map) that supports efficient queries for shortest paths froms to any destination pointt. The worst-case time complexity of our algorithm isO(kn log2n), wheren is the number of vertices describing the polygonal obstacles, andk is a parameter we call the “illumination depth” of the obstacle space. Our algorithm usesO(n) space, avoiding the possibly quadratic space complexity of methods that rely on visibility graphs. The quantityk is frequently significantly smaller thann, especially in some of the cases in which the visibility graph has quadratic size. In particular,k is bounded above by the number of different obstacles that touch any shortest path froms.