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In computational geometry, the point-in-polygon (PIP) problem asks whether a given point in the plane lies inside, outside, or on the boundary of a polygon. It is a special case of point location problems and finds applications in areas that deal with processing geometrical data, such as computer graphics, computer vision, geographical information systems (GIS), motion planning, and CAD. An early description of the problem in computer graphics shows two common approaches (ray casting and angle summation) in use as early as 1974.〔Ivan Sutherland et al.,"A Characterization of Ten Hidden-Surface Algorithms" 1974, ''ACM Computing Surveys'' vol. 6 no. 1.〕 An attempt of computer graphics veterans to trace the history of the problem and some tricks for its solution can be found in an issue of the ''Ray Tracing News''.〔("Point in Polygon, One More Time..." ), ''Ray Tracing News'', vol. 3 no. 4, October 1, 1990.〕 ==Ray casting algorithm== One simple way of finding whether the point is inside or outside a simple polygon is to test how many times a ray, starting from the point and going in any fixed direction, intersects the edges of the polygon. If the point is on the outside of the polygon the ray will intersect its edge an even number of times. If the point is on the inside of the polygon then it will intersect the edge an odd number of times. Unfortunately, this method won't work if the point is ''on'' the edge of the polygon. This algorithm is sometimes also known as the crossing number algorithm or the even-odd rule algorithm, and is known as early as 1962.〔Shimrat, M., "Algorithm 112: Position of point relative to polygon" 1962, ''Communications of the ACM'' Volume 5 Issue 8, Aug. 1962〕 The algorithm is based on a simple observation that if a point moves along a ray from infinity to the probe point and if it crosses the boundary of a polygon, possibly several times, then it alternately goes from the outside to inside, then from the inside to the outside, etc. As a result, after every two "border crossings" the moving point goes outside. This observation may be mathematically proved using the Jordan curve theorem. If implemented on a computer with finite precision arithmetics, the results may be incorrect if the point lies very close to that boundary, because of rounding errors. This is not normally a concern, as speed is much more important than complete accuracy in most applications of computer graphics. However, for a formally correct computer program, one would have to introduce a numerical tolerance ε and test in line whether ''P'' (the Point) lies within ε of ''L'' (the Line), in which case the algorithm should stop and report "''P'' lies very close to the boundary." Most implementations of the ray casting algorithm consecutively check intersections of a ray with all sides of the polygon in turn. In this case the following problem must be addressed. If the ray passes exactly through a vertex of a polygon, then it will intersect 2 segments at their endpoints. While it is OK for the case of the topmost vertex in the example or the vertex between crossing 4 and 5, the case of the rightmost vertex (in the example) requires that we count one intersection for the algorithm to work correctly. A similar problem arises with horizontal segments that happen to fall on the ray. The issue is solved as follows: If the intersection point is a vertex of a tested polygon side, then the intersection counts only if the second vertex of the side lies below the ray. This is effectively equivalent to considering vertices ''on'' the ray as lying slightly ''above'' the ray. Once again, the case of the ray passing through a vertex may pose numerical problems in finite precision arithmetics: for two sides adjacent to the same vertex the straightforward computation of the intersection with a ray may not give the vertex in both cases. If the polygon is specified by its vertices, then this problem is eliminated by checking the y-coordinates of the ray and the ends of the tested polygon side before actual computation of the intersection. In other cases, when polygon sides are computed from other types of data, other tricks must be applied for the numerical robustness of the algorithm. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Point in polygon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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