An Approximation Algorithm for MINIMUM CONVEX COVER with Logarithmic Performance Guarantee

The problem Minimum Convex Cover of covering a given polygon with a minimum number of (possibly overlapping) convex polygons is known to be NP -hard, even for polygons without holes [3]. We propose a polynomial-time approximation algorithm for this problem for polygons with or without holes that achieves an approximation ratio of O(logn), where n is the number of vertices in the input polygon. To obtain this result, we first show that an optimum solution of a restricted version of this problem, where the vertices of the convex polygons may only lie on a certain grid, contains at most three times as many convex polygons as the optimum solution of the unrestricted problem. As a second step, we use dynamic programming to obtain a convex polygon which is maximum with respect to the number of “basic triangles” that are not yet covered by another convex polygon. We obtain a solution that is at most a logarithmic factor off the optimum by iteratively applying our dynamic programming algorithm. Furthermore, we show that Minimum Convex Cover is APX-hard, i.e., there exists a constant δ > 0 such that no polynomial-time algorithm can achieve an approximation ratio of 1 + δ. We obtain this result by analyzing and slightly modifying an already existing reduction [3].