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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ibrahim, Ibrahim, Gillis, Joris, Decré, Wilm, Swevers, Jan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.06494
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author Ibrahim, Ibrahim
Gillis, Joris
Decré, Wilm
Swevers, Jan
author_facet Ibrahim, Ibrahim
Gillis, Joris
Decré, Wilm
Swevers, Jan
contents This paper introduces a novel, lightweight method to solve the visibility problem for 2D grids. The proposed method evaluates the existence of lines-of-sight from a source point to all other grid cells in a single pass with no preprocessing and independently of the number and shape of obstacles. It has a compute and memory complexity of $\mathcal{O}(n)$, where $n = n_{x}\times{} n_{y}$ is the size of the grid, and requires at most ten arithmetic operations per grid cell. In the proposed approach, we use a linear first-order hyperbolic partial differential equation to transport the visibility quantity in all directions. In order to accomplish that, we use an entropy-satisfying upwind scheme that converges to the true visibility polygon as the step size goes to zero. This dynamic-programming approach allows the evaluation of visibility for an entire grid orders of magnitude faster than typical ray-casting algorithms. We provide a practical application of our proposed algorithm by posing the visibility quantity as a heuristic and implementing a deterministic, local-minima-free path planner, setting apart the proposed planner from traditional methods. Lastly, we provide necessary algorithms and an open-source implementation of the proposed methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_06494
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Efficient Solution to the 2D Visibility Problem in Cartesian Grid Maps and its Application in Heuristic Path Planning
Ibrahim, Ibrahim
Gillis, Joris
Decré, Wilm
Swevers, Jan
Computational Geometry
Graphics
Robotics
This paper introduces a novel, lightweight method to solve the visibility problem for 2D grids. The proposed method evaluates the existence of lines-of-sight from a source point to all other grid cells in a single pass with no preprocessing and independently of the number and shape of obstacles. It has a compute and memory complexity of $\mathcal{O}(n)$, where $n = n_{x}\times{} n_{y}$ is the size of the grid, and requires at most ten arithmetic operations per grid cell. In the proposed approach, we use a linear first-order hyperbolic partial differential equation to transport the visibility quantity in all directions. In order to accomplish that, we use an entropy-satisfying upwind scheme that converges to the true visibility polygon as the step size goes to zero. This dynamic-programming approach allows the evaluation of visibility for an entire grid orders of magnitude faster than typical ray-casting algorithms. We provide a practical application of our proposed algorithm by posing the visibility quantity as a heuristic and implementing a deterministic, local-minima-free path planner, setting apart the proposed planner from traditional methods. Lastly, we provide necessary algorithms and an open-source implementation of the proposed methods.
title An Efficient Solution to the 2D Visibility Problem in Cartesian Grid Maps and its Application in Heuristic Path Planning
topic Computational Geometry
Graphics
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.06494