Memory-constrained algorithms for simple polygons

A constant-work-space algorithm has read-only access to an input array and may use only O(1) additional words of O(log n) bits, where n is the input size. We show how to triangulate a plane straight-line graph with n vertices in O(n) time and constant workspace. We also consider the problem of preprocessing a simple n-gon P for shortest path queries, where P is given by the ordered sequence of its vertices. For this, we relax the space constraint to allow s words of work-space. After quadratic preprocessing, the shortest path between any two points inside P can be found in O(n/s) time.