RegionIntersection extremely slow before throwing error

Question

I am dealing with polygons admitted by using other region functions (like RegionDifference), some of which have insidious problems.

Consider those below;

pA = Polygon[{{45.36842200621874, -19.99999846732962}, {46., -92.}, {45., -93.}, {98., -151.}, {202., -162.6389941886955}, {202., -115.45591028150943}, {165., -116.}, {120., -49.}, {120.62032087153082, -19.999999255934014}}];
pB = Polygon[{{98., -151.}, {66.58627519630939, -116.62271625256498}, {55.79313759815469, -104.8113581262825}, {50.39656879907734, -98.90567906314125}, {49.278708119268465, -97.68235982863342}}];

Note that pB is very thin and is a result of RegionDifference being infamously unreliable. So to visualise it below, I'll draw a thick line between its points.

I now wish to find the intersection of these Polygons, but alas, calling

RegionIntersection[pA, pB]

takes 303 seconds to spit out error:

BoundaryMeshRegion::dupbcl: The cell Line[{{2,1}}] was given in more than one boundary.

Clearly pB is malformed and an adversarial input for RegionIntersection. What exactly is wrong with it, and is there a way I can efficiently determine it is a bogus output of RegionDifference to be discarded?

Answer 1

The following succeeds. First, we use exact numbers and convert polygons to ImplicitRegions.

pA = RegionConvert[Polygon[Rationalize[{{45.36842200621874, -19.99999846732962}, 
{46., -92.}, {45., -93.}, {98., -151.}, {202., -162.6389941886955}, 
{202., -115.45591028150943}, {165., -116.}, {120., -49.}, 
{120.62032087153082, -19.999999255934014}}, 0]], "Implicit"];
pB = RegionConvert[ Polygon[Rationalize[{{98., -151.}, {66.58627519630939, 
-116.62271625256498}, {55.79313759815469, -104.8113581262825}, 
{50.39656879907734, -98.90567906314125}, {49.278708119268465, 
-97.68235982863342}}, 0]], "Implicit"];

Now we easily find the intersection

ri = RegionIntersection[pA, pB];

and plot it

Region[ri]

This looks like an interval in 2D. Indeed,

RegionMeasure[ri, 2]

0

and

RegionMeasure[ri, 1] // N

67.7041