Algorithm to generate random 2D polygon

Question

I'm not sure how to approach this problem. I'm not sure how complex a task it is. My aim is to have an algorithm that generates any polygon. My only requirement is that the polygon is not complex (i.e. sides do not intersect). I'm using Matlab for doing the maths but anything abstract is welcome.

Any aid/direction?

EDIT:

I was thinking more of code that could generate any polygon even things like this:

Answer 1

There's a neat way to do what you want by taking advantage of the MATLAB classes DelaunayTri and TriRep and the various methods they employ for handling triangular meshes. The code below follows these steps to create an arbitrary simple polygon:

• Generate a number of random points equal to the desired number of sides plus a fudge factor. The fudge factor ensures that, regardless of the result of the triangulation, we should have enough facets to be able to trim the triangular mesh down to a polygon with the desired number of sides.

• Create a Delaunay triangulation of the points, resulting in a convex polygon that is constructed from a series of triangular facets.

• If the boundary of the triangulation has more edges than desired, pick a random triangular facet on the edge that has a unique vertex (i.e. the triangle only shares one edge with the rest of the triangulation). Removing this triangular facet will reduce the number of boundary edges.

• If the boundary of the triangulation has fewer edges than desired, or the previous step was unable to find a triangle to remove, pick a random triangular facet on the edge that has only one of its edges on the triangulation boundary. Removing this triangular facet will increase the number of boundary edges.

• If no triangular facets can be found matching the above criteria, post a warning that a polygon with the desired number of sides couldn't be found and return the x and y coordinates of the current triangulation boundary. Otherwise, keep removing triangular facets until the desired number of edges is met, then return the x and y coordinates of triangulation boundary.

Here's the resulting function:

function [x, y, dt] = simple_polygon(numSides)

    if numSides < 3
        x = [];
        y = [];
        dt = DelaunayTri();
        return
    end

    oldState = warning('off', 'MATLAB:TriRep:PtsNotInTriWarnId');

    fudge = ceil(numSides/10);
    x = rand(numSides+fudge, 1);
    y = rand(numSides+fudge, 1);
    dt = DelaunayTri(x, y);
    boundaryEdges = freeBoundary(dt);
    numEdges = size(boundaryEdges, 1);

    while numEdges ~= numSides
        if numEdges > numSides
            triIndex = vertexAttachments(dt, boundaryEdges(:,1));
            triIndex = triIndex(randperm(numel(triIndex)));
            keep = (cellfun('size', triIndex, 2) ~= 1);
        end
        if (numEdges < numSides) || all(keep)
            triIndex = edgeAttachments(dt, boundaryEdges);
            triIndex = triIndex(randperm(numel(triIndex)));
            triPoints = dt([triIndex{:}], :);
            keep = all(ismember(triPoints, boundaryEdges(:,1)), 2);
        end
        if all(keep)
            warning('Couldn''t achieve desired number of sides!');
            break
        end
        triPoints = dt.Triangulation;
        triPoints(triIndex{find(~keep, 1)}, :) = [];
        dt = TriRep(triPoints, x, y);
        boundaryEdges = freeBoundary(dt);
        numEdges = size(boundaryEdges, 1);
    end

    boundaryEdges = [boundaryEdges(:,1); boundaryEdges(1,1)];
    x = dt.X(boundaryEdges, 1);
    y = dt.X(boundaryEdges, 2);

    warning(oldState);

end

And here are some sample results:

The generated polygons could be either convex or concave, but for larger numbers of desired sides they will almost certainly be concave. The polygons are also generated from points randomly generated within a unit square, so polygons with larger numbers of sides will generally look like they have a "squarish" boundary (such as the lower right example above with the 50-sided polygon). To modify this general bounding shape, you can change the way the initial x and y points are randomly chosen (i.e. from a Gaussian distribution, etc.).