A Linear Time Algorithm for Optimal Routing around a Rectangle

Abstract

The problem of connecting a set of terminals that lie on the sides of a rectangle to minimize the total area is discussed. An O(n) algorithm is presented to solve this problem when the set of n terminals is initially sorted. The strategy in this paper is to reduce the problem to several problems such that no matter what instance is started with, at least one of these problems can be solved optimally by a greedy method. © 1988, ACM. All rights reserved.