How to Exhibit Toroidal Maps in Space

Steinitz's theorem states that a graph is the 1-skeleton of a convex polyhedron if and only if it is 3-connected and planar. The polyhedron is called a geometric realization of the embedded graph. Its faces are bounded by convex polygons whose points are coplanar. A map on the torus does not necessarily have such a geometric realization. In this paper we relax the condition that faces are the convex hull of coplanar points. We require instead that the convex hull of the points on a face can be projected onto a plane so that the boundary of the convex hull of the projected points is the image of the boundary of the face. We also require that the interiors of the convex hulls of different faces do not intersect. Call this an exhibition of the map. A map is polyhedral if the intersection of any two closed faces is simply connected. Our main result is that every polyhedral toroidal map can be exhibited. As a corollary, every toroidal triangulation has a geometric realization.     

Constant memory routing in quasi-planar and quasi-polyhedral graphs

We address the problem of online route discovery for a class of graphs that can be embedded either in two or in three-dimensional space. In two dimensions we propose the class of quasi-planar graphs and in three dimensions the class of quasi-polyhedral graphs. In the former case such graphs are geometrically embedded in R² and have an underlying backbone that is planar with convex faces; however within each face arbitrary edges (with arbitrary crossings) are allowed. In the latter case, these graphs are geometrically embedded in R³ and consist of a backbone of convex polyhedra and arbitrary edges within each polyhedron. In both cases we provide a routing algorithm that guarantees delivery. Our algorithms need only “remember” the source and destination nodes and one (respectively, two) reference nodes used to store information about the underlying face (respectively, polyhedron) currently being traversed. The existence of the backbone is used only in proofs of correctness of the routing algorithm; the particular choice is irrelevant and does not affect the behaviour of the algorithm.     

Rigidity of certain polyhedra in $ {\bold R}^3 $

We extend the Cauchy theorem stating rigidity of convex polyhedra in . We do not require that the polyhedron be convex nor embedded, only that the realization of the polyhedron in be linear and isometric on each face. We also extend the topology of the surfaces to include the projective plane in addition to the sphere. Our approach is to choose a convenient normal to each face in such a way that as we go around the star of a vertex the chosen normals are the vertices of a convex polygon on the unit sphere. When we can make such a choice at each vertex we obtain rigidity. For example, we can prove that the heptahedron is rigid. Received: March 3, 1999; revised: December 7, 1999.     

Coxeter Decompositions of Compact Hyperbolic Pyramids and Triangular Prisms

A polyhedron P admits a Coxeter decomposition if P can be tiled by finitely many Coxeter polyhedra such that any two tiles having a common face are symmetric with respect to this face. In this paper, we classify Coxeter decompositions of compact convex pyramids and triangular prisms in the hyperbolic space $\mathbb{H}^3 $ .     

Polybasic polyhedra: structure of polyhedra with edge vectors of support size at most 2

It has widely been recognized that submodular set functions and base polyhedra associated with them play fundamental and important roles in combinatorial optimization problems. In the present paper, we introduce a generalized concept of base polyhedron. We consider a class of pointed convex polyhedra in R^V whose edge vectors have supports of size at most 2. We call such a convex polyhedron a polybasic polyhedron. The class of polybasic polyhedra includes ordinary base polyhedra, submodular/supermodular polyhedra, generalized polymatroids, bisubmodular polyhedra, polybasic zonotopes, boundary polyhedra of flows in generalized networks, etc. We show that for a pointed polyhedron PR^V, the following three statements are equivalent:

(1) P is a polybasic polyhedron.

(2) Each face of P with a normal vector of the full support V is obtained from a base polyhedron by a reflection and scalings along axes.

(3) The support function of P is a submodular function on each orthant of R^V.

This reveals the geometric structure of polybasic polyhedra and its relation to submodularity.     

Continuous Blooming of Convex Polyhedra

We construct the first two continuous bloomings of all convex polyhedra. First, the source unfolding can be continuously bloomed. Second, any unfolding of a convex polyhedron can be refined (further cut, by a linear number of cuts) to have a continuous blooming.     

Positivity of curvature and convexity of faces

Two-dimensional polyhedra homeomorphic to closed two-dimensional surfaces are considered in the three-dimensional Euclidean space. While studying the structure of an arbitrary face of a polyhedron, an interesting particular case is revealed when the magnitude of only one plane angle determines the sign of the curvature of the polyhedron at the vertex of this angle. Due to this observation, the following main theorem of the paper is obtained: If a two-dimensional polyhedron in the three-dimensional Euclidean space is isometric to the surface of a closed convex three-dimensional polyhedron, then all faces of the polyhedron are convex polygons.     

The 3-ball is a local pessimum for packing

It was conjectured by Ulam that the ball has the lowest optimal packing fraction out of all convex, three-dimensional solids. Here we prove that any origin-symmetric convex solid of sufficiently small asphericity can be packed at a higher efficiency than balls. We also show that in dimensions 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 24 there are origin-symmetric convex bodies of arbitrarily small asphericity that cannot be packed using a lattice as efficiently as balls can be.     

On the Dimension of a Face Exposed by Proper Separation of Convex Polyhedra

Whenever two nonempty convex polyhedra can be properly separated, a separating hyperplane may be chosen to contain a face of either polyhedron. It is demonstrated that, in fact, one or the other of the polyhedra admits such an exposed face having dimension no smaller than approximately half the larger dimension of the two polyhedra. An example shows that the bound on face dimension is optimal, and a linear programming representation of the problem is given.     

Resolvable Representation of Polyhedra

The paper proposes a new method for the boundary representation of three-dimensional (not necessarily convex) polyhedra, called a resolvable representation , in which small numerical errors do not violate the symbolic part of the representation. In this representation, numerical data are represented partly by the coordinates of vertices and partly by the coefficients of face equations in such a way that the polyhedron can be reconstructed from the representation in a step-by-step manner. It is proved that any polyhedron homeomorphic to a sphere has a resolvable representation, and an algorithm for finding such a representation is constructed. Received January 21, 1997, and in revised form April 29, 1998.     

Minimal and reduced pairs of convex bodies

We give a new proof for the existence and uniqueness (up to translation) of plane minimal pairs of convex bodies in a given equivalence class of the Hörmander-R»dström lattice, as well as a complete characterization of plane minimal pairs using surface area measures. Moreover, we introduce the so-called reduced pairs, which are special minimal pairs. For the plane case, we characterize reduced pairs as those pairs of convex bodies whose surface area measures are mutually singular. For higher dimensions, we give two sufficient conditions for the minimality of a pair of convex polytopes, as well as a necessary and sufficient criterion for a pair of convex polytopes to be reduced. We conclude by showing that a typical pair of convex bodies, in the sense of Baire category, is reduced, and hence the unique minimal pair in its equivalence class.     

On fencing problems

Fencing problems regard the bisection of a convex body in a way that some geometric measures are optimized. We introduce the notion of relative diameter and study bisections of centrally symmetric planar convex bodies, bisections by straight line cuts in general planar convex bodies and also bisections by hyperplane cuts for convex bodies in higher dimensions. In the planar case we obtain the best possible lower bound for the ratio between the relative diameter and the area.     

Decompositions and boundary coverings of non-convex fat polyhedra

We show that any locally-fat (or (α,β)-covered) polyhedron with convex fat faces can be decomposed into O(n) tetrahedra, where n is the number of vertices of the polyhedron. We also show that the restriction that the faces are fat is necessary: there are locally-fat polyhedra with non-fat faces that require Ω(n²) pieces in any convex decomposition. Furthermore, we show that if we want the tetrahedra in the decomposition to be fat themselves, then their number cannot be bounded as a function of n in the worst case. Finally, we obtain several results on the problem where we want to only cover the boundary of the polyhedron, and not its entire interior.     

Affine images of the rhombo-dodecahedron that are circumscribed about a three-dimensional convex body

The main result of the paper is dual to the author's earlier theorem on the affine images of the cube-octahedron (the convex hull of the midpoints of edges of a cube) inscribed in a three-dimensional convex body. The rhombododecahedron is the polyhedron dual to the cube-octahedron. Let us call a convex body in Κ⊂ℝ³ exceptional if it contains a parallelogram P and is contained in a cylinder with directrix P. It is proved that any nonexceptional convex body is inscribed in an affine image of the rhombo-dodecahedron. The author does not know if the assertion is true for all three-dimensional convex bodies. Bibliography: 2 titles. Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 246, 1997, pp. 191–195. Translated by N. Yu. Netsvetaev.     

Local overlaps in special unfoldings of convex polyhedra

We define a notion of local overlaps in polyhedron unfoldings. We use this concept to construct convex polyhedra for which certain classes of edge unfoldings contain overlaps, thereby negatively resolving some open conjectures. In particular, we construct a convex polyhedron for which every shortest path unfolding contains an overlap. We also present a convex polyhedron for which every steepest edge unfolding contains an overlap. We conclude by analyzing a broad class of unfoldings and again find a convex polyhedron for which they all contain overlaps.     

On a normed version of a Rogers–Shephard type problem

A translation body of a convex body is the convex hull of two of its translates intersecting each other. In the 1950s, Rogers and Shephard found the extremal values, over the family of n-dimensional convex bodies, of the maximal volume of the translation bodies of a given convex body. In our paper, we introduce a normed version of this problem, and for the planar case, determine the corresponding quantities for the four types of volumes regularly used in the literature: Busemann, Holmes–Thompson, and Gromov’s mass and mass*. We examine the problem also for higher dimensions, and for centrally symmetric convex bodies.     

Note on prime representations of convex polyhedral sets

Consider a convex polyhedral set represented by a system of linear inequalities. A prime representation of the polyhedron is one that contains no redundant constraints. We present a sharp upper bound on the difference between the cardinalities of any two primes.This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada under Grant Nos. A8807, A4625, and A7742.     

Representing polyhedra: faces are better than vertices

This paper investigates the reconstruction of planar-faced polyhedra given their spherical dual representation. The spherical dual representation for any genus 0 polyhedron is shown to be unambiguous and to be uniquely reconstructible in polynomial time. It is also shown that when the degree of the spherical dual representation is at most four, the representation is unambiguous for polyhedra of any genus. The first result extends, in the case of planar-faced polyhedra, the well known result that a vertex or face connectivity graph represents a polyhedron unambiguously when the graph is triconnected and planar. The second result shows that when each face of a polyhedron of arbitrary genus has at most four edges, the polyhedron can be reconstructed uniquely. This extends the previous result that a polyhedron can be uniquely reconstructed when each face of the polyhedron is triangular. As a consequence of this result, faces are a more powerful representation than vertices for polyhedra whose faces have three or four edges. A result of the reconstruction algorithm is that high level features of the polyhedron are naturally extracted. Both results explicitly use the fact that the faces of the polyhedron are planar. It is conjectured that the spherical dual representation is unambiguous for polyhedra of any genus.