We present algorithms for the online minimum hitting set problem in geometric range spaces: Given a set P of n points in the plane and a sequence of geometric objects that arrive one-by-one, we need to maintain a hitting set at all times. For disks of radii in the interval [1,M], we present an O(log M log n)-competitive algorithm. This result generalizes from disks to positive homothets of any convex body in the plane with scaling factors in the interval [1,M]. As a main technical tool, we reduce the problem to the online hitting set problem for a finite subset of integer points and bottomless rectangles. Specifically, for a given N > 1, we present an O(log N)-competitive algorithm for the variant where P is a subset of an N× N section of the integer lattice, and the geometric objects are bottomless rectangles.
@InProceedings{de_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.50, author = {De, Minati and Singh, Satyam and T\'{o}th, Csaba D.}, title = {{Online Hitting Sets for Disks of Bounded Radii}}, booktitle = {33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)}, pages = {50:1--50:16}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-395-9}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2025}, volume = {351}, editor = {Benoit, Anne and Kaplan, Haim and Wild, Sebastian and Herman, Grzegorz}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.50}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245181}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.50}, annote = {Keywords: Geometric Hitting Set, Online Algorithm, Homothets, Disks} }
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