Topological Art in Simple Galleries

Abstract

Let P be a simple polygon, then the art gallery problem is looking for a minimum set of points (guards) that can see every point in P. We say two points $$a,b\in P$$ a , b ∈ P can see each other if the line segment $${\text {seg}} (a,b)$$ seg ( a , b ) is contained in P. We denote by V(P) the family of all minimum guard placements. The Hausdorff distance makes V(P) a metric space and thus a topological space. We show homotopy-universality, that is, for every semi-algebraic set S there is a polygon P such that V(P) is homotopy equivalent to S. Furthermore, for various concrete topological spaces T, we describe instances I of the art gallery problem such that V(I) is homeomorphic to T.