ICPC 2008 - K. Steam Roller
State the problem in your own words. Focus on the mathematical or algorithmic core rather than repeating the full statement.
Source-first archive entry
This page is built from the copied files in competitive_programming/icpc/2008/K-steam-roller. Edit
competitive_programming/icpc/2008/K-steam-roller/solution.tex to update the written solution and
competitive_programming/icpc/2008/K-steam-roller/solution.cpp to update the implementation.
The website does not replace those files with hand-maintained HTML. It reads the copied source tree during the build and exposes the exact files below.
Problem Statement
Copied statement text kept beside the solution archive for direct reference.
Problem K
Steam Roller
Input file: steam.in
Johnny drives a steam roller, which like all steam rollers is slow and takes a relatively long time to start moving,
change direction, and brake to a full stop. Johnny has just finished his day’s work and is driving his steam roller
home to see his wife. Your task is to find the fastest path for him and his steam roller.
The city where Johnny lives has a regular structure (the streets form an orthogonal system). The city streets are laid
out on a rectangular grid of intersections. Each intersection is connected to its neighbors (up to four of them) by a
street. Each street is exactly one block long. When Johnny enters a street, he must always travel to the other end
(continue to the next intersection). From that point, he can continue in any of the four possible directions to another
intersection, and so on.
By studying the road conditions of the streets, Johnny has calculated the time needed to go from one end to the other
of every street in town. The time is the same for both directions. However, Johnny’s calculations hold only under the
ideal condition that the steam roller is already in motion when it enters a street and does not need to accelerate or
brake. Whenever the steam roller changes direction at a intersection directly before or after a street, the estimated
ideal time for that street must be doubled. The same holds if the roller begins moving from a full stop (for example at
the beginning of Johnny’s trip) or comes to a full stop (for example at the end of his trip).
The following picture shows an example. The numbers show the “ideal” times needed to drive through the
corresponding streets. Streets with missing numbers are unusable for steam rollers. Johnny wants to go from the top-
left corner to the bottom-right one.
Start
10 10 10
9 10
9 10
9
9 10
9 9
End
The path consisting of streets labeled with 9’s seems to be faster at the first sight. However, due to the braking and
accelerating restrictions, it takes double the estimated time for every street on the path, making the total time 108.
The path along the streets labeled with 10’s is faster because Johnny can drive two of the streets at the full speed,
giving a total time of 100.
Input
The input consists of several test cases. Each test case starts with six positive integer numbers: R, C, r1, c1, r2, and c2. B B B B B B B B
R and C describe the size of the city, r1, c1 are the starting coordinates, and r2, c2 are the coordinates of Johnny’s
B B B B B B B B
home. The starting coordinates are different from the coordinates of Johnny’s home. The numbers satisfy the
following condition: 1 ≤ r1, r2 ≤ R ≤ 100, 1 ≤ c1, c2 ≤ C ≤ 100.
B B B B B B B B
After the six numbers, there are C-1 non-negative integers describing the time needed to drive on streets between
intersections (1,1) and (1,2), (1,2) and (1,3), (1,3) and (1,4), and so on. Then there are C non-negative integers
describing the time need to drive on streets between intersections (1,1) and (2,1), (1,2) and (2,2), and so on. After
that, another C – 1 non-negative integers describe the next row of streets across the width of the city. The input
continues in this way to describe all streets in the city. Each integer specifies the time needed to drive through the
corresponding street (not higher than 10000), provided the steam roller proceeds straight through without starting,
stopping, or turning at either end of the street. If any combination of one or more of these events occurs, the time is
multiplied by two. Any of these integers may be zero, in which case the corresponding street cannot be used at all.
The last test case is followed by six zeroes.
All numbers are separated with at least one whitespace character (space, tab, or newline), but any amount of
additional whitespace (including empty lines) may be present to improve readability.
Output
For each test case, print the case number (beginning with 1) followed by the minimal time needed to go from
intersection x1, y1 to x2, y2. If the trip cannot be accomplished (due to unusable streets), print the word Impossible
B B B B B B B B T T
instead.
Sample Input Output for the Sample Input
4 4 1 1 4 4 Case 1: 100
10 10 10 Case 2: Impossible
9 0 0 10
0 0 0
9 0 0 10
9 0 0
0 9 0 10
0 9 9
2 2 1 1 2 2 0 1 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
Editorial
Rendered from the copied solution.tex file. The original TeX source remains
available below.
Key Observations
Write the structural observations that make the problem tractable.
State any useful invariant, monotonicity property, graph interpretation, or combinatorial reformulation.
If the constraints matter, explain exactly which part of the solution they enable.
Algorithm
Describe the data structures and the state maintained by the algorithm.
Explain the processing order and why it is sufficient.
Mention corner cases explicitly if they affect the implementation.
Correctness Proof
We prove that the algorithm returns the correct answer.
Lemma 1.
State the first key claim.
Proof.
Provide a concise proof.
Lemma 2.
State the next claim if needed.
Proof.
Provide a concise proof.
Theorem.
The algorithm outputs the correct answer for every valid input.
Proof.
Combine the lemmas and finish the argument.
Complexity Analysis
State the running time and memory usage in terms of the input size.
Implementation Notes
Mention any non-obvious implementation detail that is easy to get wrong.
Mention numeric limits, indexing conventions, or tie-breaking rules if relevant.
Code
Exact copied C++ implementation from solution.cpp.
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
namespace {
void solve() {
// Fill in the full solution logic for the problem here.
}
} // namespace
int main() {
ios::sync_with_stdio(false);
cin.tie(nullptr);
solve();
return 0;
}
Source Files
Exact copied source-of-truth files. Edit solution.tex for the write-up and solution.cpp for the implementation.
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amsthm}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\title{ICPC World Finals 2008\\K. Steam Roller}
\author{}
\date{}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section*{Problem Summary}
State the problem in your own words. Focus on the mathematical or algorithmic core rather than repeating the full statement.
\section*{Key Observations}
\begin{itemize}[leftmargin=*]
\item Write the structural observations that make the problem tractable.
\item State any useful invariant, monotonicity property, graph interpretation, or combinatorial reformulation.
\item If the constraints matter, explain exactly which part of the solution they enable.
\end{itemize}
\section*{Algorithm}
\begin{enumerate}[leftmargin=*]
\item Describe the data structures and the state maintained by the algorithm.
\item Explain the processing order and why it is sufficient.
\item Mention corner cases explicitly if they affect the implementation.
\end{enumerate}
\section*{Correctness Proof}
We prove that the algorithm returns the correct answer.
\paragraph{Lemma 1.}
State the first key claim.
\paragraph{Proof.}
Provide a concise proof.
\paragraph{Lemma 2.}
State the next claim if needed.
\paragraph{Proof.}
Provide a concise proof.
\paragraph{Theorem.}
The algorithm outputs the correct answer for every valid input.
\paragraph{Proof.}
Combine the lemmas and finish the argument.
\section*{Complexity Analysis}
State the running time and memory usage in terms of the input size.
\section*{Implementation Notes}
\begin{itemize}[leftmargin=*]
\item Mention any non-obvious implementation detail that is easy to get wrong.
\item Mention numeric limits, indexing conventions, or tie-breaking rules if relevant.
\end{itemize}
\end{document}
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
namespace {
void solve() {
// Fill in the full solution logic for the problem here.
}
} // namespace
int main() {
ios::sync_with_stdio(false);
cin.tie(nullptr);
solve();
return 0;
}