Computing Minimum Length Paths of a Given Homotopy Class (Extended Abstract)

In this abstract, we use the universal covering space of a surface to generalize previous results on computing paths in a simple polygon. We look at optimizing paths among obstacles in the plane under the Euclidean and link metrics and polygonal convex distance functions. The universal cover is a unifying framework that reveals connections between minimum paths under these three distance functions, as well as yielding simpler linear-time algorithms for shortest path trees and minimum link paths in simple polygons.

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