A Framework for Drawing Planar Graphs with Curves and Polylines

We describe a unified framework of aesthetic criteria and complexity measures for drawing planar graphs with polylines and curves. This framework includes several visual properties of such drawings, including aspect ratio, vertex resolution, edge length, edge separation, and edge curvature, as well as complexity measures such as vertex and edge representational complexity and the area of the drawing. In addition to this general framework, we present algorithms that operate within this framework. Specifically, we describe an algorithm for drawing any n-vertex planar graph in an O(n) × O(n) grid using polylines that have at most two bends per edge and asymptotically-optimal worst-case angular resolution. More significantly, we show how to adapt this algorithm to draw any n-vertex planar graph using cubic Bézier curves, with all vertices and control points placed within an O(n) × O(n) integer grid so that the curved edges achieve a curvilinear analogue of good angular resolution. All of our algorithms run in O(n) time.     

A Möbius-Invariant Power Diagram and Its Applications to Soap Bubbles and Planar Lombardi Drawing

We use three-dimensional hyperbolic geometry to define a form of power diagram for systems of circles in the plane that is invariant under Möbius transformations. By applying this construction to circle packings derived from the Koebe–Andreev–Thurston circle packing theorem, we show that every planar graph of maximum degree three has a planar Lombardi drawing (a drawing in which the edges are drawn as circular arcs, meeting at equal angles at each vertex). We use circle packing to construct planar Lombardi drawings of a special class of 4-regular planar graphs, the medial graphs of polyhedral graphs, and we show that not every 4-regular planar graph has a planar Lombardi drawing. We also use these power diagrams to characterize the graphs formed by two-dimensional soap bubble clusters (in equilibrium configurations) as being exactly the 3-regular bridgeless planar multigraphs, and we show that soap bubble clusters in stable equilibria must in addition be 3-connected.     

Drawing Trees with Perfect Angular Resolution and Polynomial Area

We study methods for drawing trees with perfect angular resolution, i.e., with angles at each node $v$ equal to $2\pi /d(v)$ . We show:

1. Any unordered tree has a crossing-free straight-line drawing with perfect angular resolution and polynomial area.
2. There are ordered trees that require exponential area for any crossing-free straight-line drawing having perfect angular resolution.
3. Any ordered tree has a crossing-free Lombardi-style drawing (where each edge is represented by a circular arc) with perfect angular resolution and polynomial area.

Thus, our results explore what is achievable with straight-line drawings and what more is achievable with Lombardi-style drawings, with respect to drawings of trees with perfect angular resolution.     

Visibility Drawings of Plane 3-Trees with Minimum Area

A visibility drawing of a plane graph G is a drawing of G where each vertex is drawn as a horizontal line segment and each edge is drawn as a vertical line segment such that the line segments use only grid points as their endpoints. The area of a visibility drawing is the area of the smallest rectangle on the grid which encloses the drawing. A minimum-area visibility drawing of a plane graph G is a visibility drawing of G where the area is the minimum among all possible visibility drawings of G. The area minimization for grid visibility representation of planar graphs is NP-hard. However, the problem can be solved for a fixed planar embedding of a hierarchically planar graph in quadratic time. In this paper, we give a polynomial-time algorithm to obtain minimum-area visibility drawings of plane 3-trees.     

Grid Drawings of 4-Connected Plane Graphs

A grid drawing of a plane graph G is a drawing of G on the plane so that all vertices of G are put on plane grid points and all edges are drawn as straight line segments between their endpoints without any edge-intersection. In this paper we give a very simple algorithm to find a grid drawing of any given 4-connected plane graph G with four or more vertices on the outer face. The algorithm takes time O(n) and yields a drawing in a rectangular grid of width \lceil n/2 \rceil - 1 and height \lfloor n/2\rfloor if G has n vertices. The algorithm is best possible in the sense that there are an infinite number of 4-connected plane graphs, any grid drawings of which need rectangular grids of width \lceil n/2 \rceil - 1 and height \lfloor n/2\rfloor . Received October 13, 1999, and in revised form July 18, 2000. Online publication February 26, 2001.     

Area-efficient planar straight-line drawings of outerplanar graphs

It is important to minimize the area of a drawing of a graph, so that the drawing can fit in a small drawing-space. It is well-known that a planar graph with n vertices admits a planar straight-line grid drawing with O(n²) area [H. de Fraysseix, J. Pach, R. Pollack, How to draw a planar graph on a grid, Combinatorica 10(1) (1990) 41-51; W. Schnyder, Embedding planar graphs on the grid, in: Proceedings of the First ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, 1990, pp. 138-148]. Unfortunately, there is a matching lower-bound of Ω(n²) on the area-requirements of the planar straight-line grid drawings of certain planar graphs. Hence, it is important to investigate important categories of planar graphs to determine if they admit planar straight-line grid drawings with o(n²) area.In this paper, we investigate an important category of planar graphs, namely, outerplanar graphs. We show that an outerplanar graph G with degree d admits a planar straight-line grid drawing with area O(dn^1.48) in O(n) time. This implies that if d=o(n^0.52), then G can be drawn in this manner in o(n²) area.     

Pointed drawings of planar graphs

We study the problem how to draw a planar graph crossing-free such that every vertex is incident to an angle greater than π. In general a plane straight-line drawing cannot guarantee this property. We present algorithms which construct such drawings with either tangent-continuous biarcs or quadratic Bézier curves (parabolic arcs), even if the positions of the vertices are predefined by a given plane straight-line drawing of the graph. Moreover, the graph can be drawn with circular arcs if the vertices can be placed arbitrarily. The topic is related to non-crossing drawings of multigraphs and vertex labeling.     

An algorithm for constructing star-shaped drawings of plane graphs

A straight-line planar drawing of a plane graph is called a convex drawing if every facial cycle is drawn as a convex polygon. Convex drawings of graphs is a well-established aesthetic in graph drawing, however not all planar graphs admit a convex drawing. Tutte [W.T. Tutte, Convex representations of graphs, Proc. of London Math. Soc. 10 (3) (1960) 304–320] showed that every triconnected plane graph admits a convex drawing for any given boundary drawn as a convex polygon. Thomassen [C. Thomassen, Plane representations of graphs, in: Progress in Graph Theory, Academic Press, 1984, pp. 43–69] gave a necessary and sufficient condition for a biconnected plane graph with a prescribed convex boundary to have a convex drawing.In this paper, we initiate a new notion of star-shaped drawing of a plane graph as a straight-line planar drawing such that each inner facial cycle is drawn as a star-shaped polygon, and the outer facial cycle is drawn as a convex polygon. A star-shaped drawing is a natural extension of a convex drawing, and a new aesthetic criteria for drawing planar graphs in a convex way as much as possible. We give a sufficient condition for a given set A of corners of a plane graph to admit a star-shaped drawing whose concave corners are given by the corners in A, and present a linear time algorithm for constructing such a star-shaped drawing.     

Small Drawings of Outerplanar Graphs,Series-Parallel Graphs,and Other Planar Graphs

In this paper, we study small planar drawings of planar graphs. For arbitrary planar graphs, Θ(n ²) is the established upper and lower bound on the worst-case area. A long-standing open problem is to determine for what graphs a smaller area can be achieved. We show here that series-parallel graphs can be drawn in O(n ^3/2) area, and outerplanar graphs can be drawn in O(nlog n) area, but 2-outerplanar graphs and planar graphs of proper pathwidth 3 require Ω(n ²) area. Our drawings are visibility representations, which can be converted to polyline drawings of asymptotically the same area.     

Online Point Location in Planar Arrangements and Its Applications

Recently, Har-Peled [HP2] presented a new randomized technique for online construction of the zone of a curve in a planar arrangement of arcs. In this paper we present several applications of this technique, which yield improved solutions to a variety of problems. These applications include: (i) an efficient mechanism for performing online point-location queries in an arrangement of arcs; (ii) an efficient algorithm for computing an approximation to the minimum weight Steiner tree of a set of points, where the weight is the number of intersections between the tree edges and a given collection of arcs; (iii) a subquadratic algorithm for cutting a set of pseudo-parabolas into pseudo-segments; (iv) an algorithm for cutting a set of line segments (``rods') in 3-space to eliminate all cycles in the vertical depth order; and (v) a near-optimal algorithm for reporting all bichromatic intersections between a set R of red arcs and a set B of blue arcs, where the unions of the arcs in each set are both connected. Received December 22, 1999, and in revised form August 25, 2000. Online publication May 11, 2001.     

Area requirement and symmetry display of planar upward drawings

In this paper we investigate the problem of constructing planar straight-line drawings of acyclic digraphs such that all the edges flow in the same direction, e.g., from bottom to top. Our contribution is twofold. First we show the existence of a family of planar acyclic digraphs that require exponential area for any such drawing. Second, motivated by the preceding lower bound, we relax the straight-line constraint and allow bends along the edges. We present a linear-time algorithm that produces drawings of planarst-graphs with a small number of bends, asymptotically optimal area, and such that symmetries and isomorphisms of the digraph are displayed. If the digraph has no transitive edges, then the drawing obtained has no bends. Also, a variation of the algorithm produces drawings with exact minimum area.Research supported in part by Cadre Technologies Inc., by the ESPRIT II Basic Research Actions Program of the EC under Contract No. 3075 (project ALCOM), by the National Science Foundation under Grant CCR-9007851, by the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under Contract N00014-83-K-0146 and ARPA order 6320, amendment 1, by the Progetto Finalizzato Sistemi Informatici e Calcolo Parallelo of the Italian National Research Council, by the Texas Advanced Research Program under Grant No. 3972, and by the U.S. Army Research Office under Grant DAAL03-91-G-0035.     

AnO(m + n log n) Algorithm for the Maximum-Clique Problem in Circular-Arc Graphs

We present an algorithm to compute, inO(m + n log n) time, a maximum clique in circular-arc graphs (withnvertices andmedges) provided a circular-arc model of the graph is given. If the circular-arc endpoints are given in sorted order, the time complexity isO(m). The algorithm operates on the geometric structure of the circular arcs, radially sweeping their endpoints; it uses a very simple data structure consisting of doubly linked lists. Previously, the best time bound for this problem wasO(m log log n + n log n), using an algorithm that solved an independent subproblem for each of thencircular arcs. By using the radial-sweep technique, we need not solve each of these subproblems independently; thus we eliminate the log log nfactor from the running time of earlier algorithms. For vertex-weighted circular-arc graphs, it is possible to use our approach to obtain anO(m log log n + n log n) algorithm for finding a maximum-weight clique—which matches the best known algorithm.     

Bold graph drawings

When a graph is drawn in a classical manner, its vertices are shown as small disks and its edges with a positive width; zero-width edges and zero-size vertices exist only in theory. Let r denote the radius of the disks that show vertices and w the width of edges. We give a list of conditions that make such a drawing good and that apply to not necessarily planar graphs. We show that if r<w, a vertex must have constant degree for a drawing to satisfy the conditions, and if r?w, a vertex can have any degree. We also give an algorithm that, for a given drawing and values for r and w, determines whether the bold drawing satisfies the conditions. Furthermore, we show how to maximize r and/or w without violating the conditions in polynomial time.     

Recognizing Planar Strict Quasi-Parity Graphs

 A graph is a strict-quasi parity (SQP) graph if every induced subgraph that is not a clique contains a pair of vertices with no odd chordless path between them (an “even pair”). We present an O(n ³) algorithm for recognizing planar strict quasi-parity graphs, based on Wen-Lian Hsu's decomposition of planar (perfect) graphs and on the (non-algorithmic) characterization of planar minimal non-SQP graphs given in [9]. Received: September 21, 1998 Final version received: May 9, 2000     

Obstacle Numbers of Graphs

An obstacle representation of a graph G is a drawing of G in the plane with straight-line edges, together with a set of polygons (respectively, convex polygons) called obstacles, such that an edge exists in G if and only if it does not intersect an obstacle. The obstacle number (convex obstacle number) of G is the smallest number of obstacles (convex obstacles) in any obstacle representation of G. In this paper, we identify families of graphs with obstacle number 1 and construct graphs with arbitrarily large obstacle number (convex obstacle number). We prove that a graph has an obstacle representation with a single convex k-gon if and only if it is a circular arc graph with clique covering number at most k in which no two arcs cover the host circle. We also prove independently that a graph has an obstacle representation with a single segment obstacle if and only if it is the complement of an interval bigraph.     

Two remarks on circular arc graphs

In our first remark we observe a property of circular arcs which is similar to the Helly property and is helpful in describing all maximal cliques in circular arc graphs (as well as allowing us to genralize a result of Tucker). Our main result is a new simple characterization of circular arc graphs of clique covering number two. These graphs play a crucial role in recognition algorithms for circular arc graphs, and have been characterized by several authors. Specifically, we show that a graph with clique covering number two is a circular arc graph if and only if its edges can be coloured by two colours so that no induced four-cycle contains two opposite edges of the same colour. Our proof of the characterization depends on the lexicographic method we have recently introduced. Both remarks could be useful in designing efficient algorithms for (maximum cliques in, respectively recognition of) circular arc graphs     

Convex drawings of hierarchical planar graphs and clustered planar graphs

In this paper, we present results on convex drawings of hierarchical graphs and clustered graphs. A convex drawing is a planar straight-line drawing of a plane graph, where every facial cycle is drawn as a convex polygon. Hierarchical graphs and clustered graphs are useful graph models with structured relational information. Hierarchical graphs are graphs with layering structures; clustered graphs are graphs with recursive clustering structures.We first present the necessary and sufficient conditions for a hierarchical plane graph to admit a convex drawing. More specifically, we show that the necessary and sufficient conditions for a biconnected plane graph due to Thomassen [C. Thomassen, Plane representations of graphs, in: J.A. Bondy, U.S.R. Murty (Eds.), Progress in Graph Theory, Academic Press, 1984, pp. 43–69] remains valid for the case of a hierarchical plane graph. We then prove that every internally triconnected clustered plane graph with a completely connected clustering structure admits a “fully convex drawing,” a planar straight-line drawing such that both clusters and facial cycles are drawn as convex polygons. We also present algorithms to construct such convex drawings of hierarchical graphs and clustered graphs.     

Crossing minimization in extended level drawings of graphs

The most popular method of drawing directed graphs is to place vertices on a set of horizontal or concentric levels, known as level drawings. Level drawings are well studied in Graph Drawing due to their strong application for the visualization of hierarchy in graphs. There are two drawing conventions: Horizontal drawings use a set of parallel lines and radial drawings use a set of concentric circles.In level drawings, edges are only allowed between vertices on different levels. However, many real world graphs exhibit hierarchies with edges between vertices on the same level. In this paper, we initiate the new problem of extended level drawings of graphs, which was addressed as one of the open problems in social network visualization, in particular, displaying centrality values of actors. More specifically, we study minimizing the number of edge crossings in extended level drawings of graphs. The main problem can be formulated as the extended one-sided crossing minimization problem between two adjacent levels, as it is folklore with the one-sided crossing minimization problem in horizontal drawings.We first show that the extended one-sided crossing minimization problem is NP-hard for both horizontal and radial drawings, and then present efficient heuristics for minimizing edge crossings in extended level drawings. Our extensive experimental results show that our new methods reduce up to 30% of edge crossings.     

Convex drawings of graphs with non-convex boundary constraints

In this paper, we study a new problem of convex drawing of planar graphs with non-convex boundary constraints, and call a drawing in which every inner-facial cycle is drawn as a convex polygon an inner-convex drawing. It is proved that every triconnected plane graph with the boundary fixed with a star-shaped polygon whose kernel has a positive area admits an inner-convex drawing. We also prove that every four-connected plane graph whose boundary is fixed with a crown-shaped polygon admits an inner-convex drawing. We present linear time algorithms to construct inner-convex drawings for both cases.     

Segment Intersection Searching Problems in General Settings

Abstract. We consider segment intersection searching amidst (possibly intersecting) algebraic arcs in the plane. We show how to preprocess n arcs in time O(n ^2+ɛ ) into a data structure of size O(n ^2+ɛ ) , for any ɛ >0 , such that the k arcs intersecting a query segment can be counted in time O( log n) or reported in time O( log n+k) . This problem was extensively studied in restricted settings (e.g., amidst segments, circles, or circular arcs), but no solution with comparable performance was previously presented for the general case of possibly intersecting algebraic arcs. Our data structure for the general case matches or improves (sometimes by an order of magnitude) the size of the best previously presented solutions for the special cases. As an immediate application of this result, we obtain an efficient data structure for the triangular windowing problem, which is a generalization of triangular range searching. As another application, the first substantially subquadratic algorithm for a red—blue intersection counting problem is derived. We also describe simple data structures for segment intersection searching among disjoint arcs, and for ray shooting among possibly intersecting arcs.