Point-in-polygon

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.

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.

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. 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.

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Wikipedia