Minimum-weight triangulation

Three possible triangulations of the same polygon. The central triangulation has less weight (sum of perimeters).

In computational geometry and computer science, the minimum-weight triangulation problem is the problem of finding a triangulation of minimal total edge length.[1] That is, an input polygon or the convex hull of an input point set must be subdivided into triangles that meet edge-to-edge and vertex-to-vertex, in such a way as to minimize the sum of the perimeters of the triangles. The problem is NP-hard for point set inputs, but may be approximated to any desired degree of accuracy. For polygon inputs, it may be solved exactly in polynomial time. The minimum weight triangulation has also sometimes been called the optimal triangulation.

  1. ^ For surveys of the problem, see Xu (1998), Levcopoulos (2008), and De Loera, Rambau & Santos (2010).