POINT VISIBILITY GRAPHS AND -CONVEX COVER

A visibility relation can be viewed as a graph: the uncountable graph of a visibility relationship between points in a polygon P is called the point visibility graph (PVG) of P. In this paper we explore the use of perfect graphs to characterize tractable subproblems of visibility problems. Our main result is a characterization of which polygons are guaranteed to have weakly triangulated PVGs, under a generalized notion of visibility called [Formula: see text]-visibility. Let [Formula: see text] denote a set of line orientations. A connected point set P is called [Formula: see text]-convex if the intersection of P with any line with orientation in [Formula: see text] is connected. Two points in a polygon are said to be [Formula: see text]-visible if there is an [Formula: see text]-convex path between them inside the polygon. Let [Formula: see text] denote the set of orientations perpendicular to orientations in [Formula: see text]. Let [Formula: see text] be the set of orientations θ such that a "reflex" local maximum in the boundary of P exists with respect to θ. Our characterization of which polygons have weakly-triangulated PVGs is based on restricting the cardinality and span of [Formula: see text]. This characterization allows us to exhibit a class of polygons admitting a polynomial algorithm for [Formula: see text]-convex cover.