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The Rectilinear Steiner Tree Problem is $NP$-Complete

Garey, M. R., Johnson, D. S.·1977·SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics

Abstract

An optimum rectilinear Steiner tree for a set A of points in the plane is a tree which interconnects A using horizontal and vertical lines of shortest possible total length. Such trees correspond to single net wiring patterns on printed backplanes which minimize total wire length. We show that the problem of determining this minimum length, given A, is $NP$-complete. Thus the problem of finding optimum rectilinear Steiner trees is probably computationally hopeless, and the emphasis of the literature for this problem on heuristics and special case algorithms is well justified. A number of intermediary lemmas concerning the $NP$-completeness of certain graph-theoretic problems are proved and may be of independent interest.

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Metadata

Authors
Garey, M. R., & Johnson, D. S.
Venue
SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics
Published
1977-06
Volume
32
Issue
4
Pages
826-834
ISSN
  • 0036-1399 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-712X
OpenAlex
W2020112047
Cited by
1,124
References
0
FWCI
8.24
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The Rectilinear Steiner Tree Problem is $NP$-Complete. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1137/0132071
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Garey, M. R., & Johnson, D. S. (1977). The Rectilinear Steiner Tree Problem is $NP$-Complete. SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics. https://doi.org/10.1137/0132071

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