Area-efficient algorithms for straight-line tree drawings

We investigate several straight-line drawing problems for bounded-degree trees in the integer grid without edge crossings under various types of drawings: (1) upward drawings whose edges are drawn as vertically monotone chains, a sequence of line segments, from a parent to its children, (2) order-preserving drawings which preserve the left-to-right order of the children of each vertex, and (3) orthogonal straight-line drawings in which each edge is represented as a single vertical or horizontal segment.

Main contribution of this paper is a unified framework to reduce the upper bound on area for the straight-line drawing problems from O(nlogn) (Crescenzi et al., 1992) to O(nloglogn). This is the first solution of an open problem stated by Garg et al. (1993). We also show that any binary tree admits a small area drawing satisfying any given aspect ratio in the orthogonal straight-line drawing type.

Our results are briefly summarized as follows. Let T be a bounded-degree tree with n vertices. Firstly, we show that T admits an upward straight-line drawing with area O(nloglogn). If T is binary, we can obtain an O(nloglogn)-area upward orthogonal drawing in which each edge is drawn as a chain of at most two orthogonal segments and which has O(n/logn) bends in total. Secondly, we present O(nloglogn)-area (respectively, -volume) orthogonal straight-line drawing algorithms for binary trees with arbitrary aspect ratios in 2-dimension (respectively, 3-dimension). Finally, we present some experimental results which shows the area requirements, in practice, for (order-preserving) upward drawing are much smaller than theoretical bounds obtained through analysis.     

On an interpolation property of outerplanar graphs

Let D be an acyclic orientation of a graph G. An arc of D is said to be dependent if its reversal creates a directed cycle. Let d(D) denote the number of dependent arcs in D. Define d_min(G) (d_max(G)) to be the minimum (maximum) number of d(D) over all acyclic orientations D of G. We determine d_min(G) for an outerplanar graph G and prove that G has an acyclic orientation with exactly k dependent arcs if d_min(G)?k?d_max(G).     

(2,1)-Total labelling of outerplanar graphs

The (2,1)-total labelling number of a graph G is the width of the smallest range of integers that suffices to label the vertices and the edges of G such that no two adjacent vertices have the same label, no two adjacent edges have the same label and the difference between the labels of a vertex and its incident edges is at least 2. In this paper we prove that if G is an outerplanar graph with maximum degree Δ(G), then if Δ(G)?5, or Δ(G)=3 and G is 2-connected, or Δ(G)=4 and G contains no intersecting triangles.     

Transversal structures on triangulations: A combinatorial study and straight-line drawings

This article focuses on a combinatorial structure specific to triangulated plane graphs with quadrangular outer face and no separating triangle, which are called irreducible triangulations. The structure has been introduced by Xin He under the name of regular edge-labelling and consists of two bipolar orientations that are transversal. For this reason, the terminology used here is that of transversal structures. The main results obtained in the article are a bijection between irreducible triangulations and ternary trees, and a straight-line drawing algorithm for irreducible triangulations. For a random irreducible triangulation with n vertices, the grid size of the drawing is asymptotically with high probability 11n/27×11n/27 up to an additive error of . In contrast, the best previously known algorithm for these triangulations only guarantees a grid size (⌈n/2⌉−1)×⌊n/2⌋.     

Area requirement of graph drawings with few crossings per edge

In this paper we study how to compute compact straight-line drawings of planar graphs with a limited number of crossings per edge. We prove that every outerplanar graph can be drawn in $O(n\log n)$ area using a sub-linear number of crossings per edge, and that for any given number $\epsilon >0$, every outerplanar graph admits an $O(n^{1+\epsilon })$ area drawing with $O(n^{1?\epsilon })$ crossing per edge. The drawing algorithms run in linear time and can be also generalized to another meaningful sub-family of series–parallel graphs with bounded vertex-degree.     

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.     

Thickness and outerthickness for embedded graphs

We prove new upper bounds for the thickness and outerthickness of a graph in terms of its orientable and nonorientable genus by applying the method of deleting spanning disks of embeddings to approximate the thickness and outerthickness. We also show that every non-planar toroidal graph can be edge partitioned into a planar graph and an outerplanar graph. This implies that the outerthickness of the torus (the maximum outerthickness of all toroidal graphs) is 3. Finally, we show that all graphs embeddable in the double torus have thickness at most 3 and outerthickness at most 5.     

Algebraic characterizations of outerplanar and planar graphs

A drawing of a graph in the plane is even if nonadjacent edges have an even number of intersections. Hanani’s theorem characterizes planar graphs as those graphs that have an even drawing. In this paper we present an algebraic characterization of graphs that have an even drawing. Together with Hanani’s theorem this yields an algebraic characterization of planar graphs. We will also present algebraic characterizations of subgraphs of paths, and of outerplanar graphs.     

Monotone drawings of planar graphs

Let G be a graph drawn in the plane so that its edges are represented by x‐monotone curves, any pair of which cross an even number of times. We show that G can be redrawn in such a way that the x‐coordinates of the vertices remain unchanged and the edges become non‐crossing straight‐line segments. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 46: 39–47, 2004     

The ratio of the numbers of odd and even cycles in outerplanar graphs

In this paper, we investigate the ratio of the numbers of odd and even cycles in outerplanar graphs. We verify that the ratio generally diverges to infinity as the order of a graph diverges to infinity. We also give sharp estimations of the ratio for several classes of outerplanar graphs, and obtain a constant upper bound of the ratio for some of them. Furthermore, we consider similar problems in graphs with some pairs of forbidden subgraphs/minors, and propose a challenging problem concerning claw-free 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.     

Caterpillar arboricity of planar graphs

We solve a conjecture of Roditty, Shoham and Yuster [P.J. Cameron (Ed.), Problems from the 17th British Combinatorial Conference, Discrete Math., 231 (2001) 469-478; Y. Roditty, B. Shoham, R. Yuster, Monotone paths in edge-ordered sparse graphs, Discrete Math. 226 (2001) 411-417] on the caterpillar arboricity of planar graphs. We prove that for every planar graph G=(V,E), the edge set E can be partitioned into four subsets (E_i)_1?i?4 in such a way that G[E_i], for 1?i?4, is a forest of caterpillars. We also provide a linear-time algorithm which constructs for a given planar graph G, four forests of caterpillars covering the edges of G.     

Encoding and avoiding 2-connected patterns in polygon dissections and outerplanar graphs

Let $\Delta =\{{\delta }_1,{\delta }_2,\dots ,{\delta }_m\}$ be a finite set of 2-connected patterns, i.e. graphs up to vertex relabelling. We study the generating function $D_{\Delta }(z,u_1,u_2,\dots ,u_m),$ which counts polygon dissections and marks subgraph copies of ${\delta }_i$ with the variable $u_i$. We prove that this is always algebraic, through an explicit combinatorial decomposition depending on $\Delta$. The decomposition also gives a defining system for $D_{\Delta }(z,\mathbf{0})$, which encodes polygon dissections that avoid these patterns as subgraphs. In this way, we are able to extract normal limit laws for the patterns when they are encoded, and perform asymptotic enumeration of the resulting classes when they are avoided. The results can be transferred to the case of labelled outerplanar graphs. We give examples and compute the relevant constants when the patterns are small cycles or dissections.     

Injective coloring of planar graphs

A coloring of a graph G is injective if its restriction to the neighborhood of any vertex is injective. The injective chromatic numberχ_i(G) of a graph G is the least k such that there is an injective k-coloring. In this paper we prove that if G is a planar graph with girth g and maximum degree Δ, then (1) χ_i(G)=Δ if either g≥20 and Δ≥3, or g≥7 and Δ≥71; (2) χ_i(G)≤Δ+1 if g≥11; (3) χ_i(G)≤Δ+2 if g≥8.     

Network flow interdiction on planar graphs

The network flow interdiction problem asks to reduce the value of a maximum flow in a given network as much as possible by removing arcs and vertices of the network constrained to a fixed budget. Although the network flow interdiction problem is strongly NP-complete on general networks, pseudo-polynomial algorithms were found for planar networks with a single source and a single sink and without the possibility to remove vertices. In this work, we introduce pseudo-polynomial algorithms that overcome various restrictions of previous methods. In particular, we propose a planarity-preserving transformation that enables incorporation of vertex removals and vertex capacities in pseudo-polynomial interdiction algorithms for planar graphs. Additionally, a new approach is introduced that allows us to determine in pseudo-polynomial time the minimum interdiction budget needed to remove arcs and vertices of a given network such that the demands of the sink node cannot be completely satisfied anymore. The algorithm works on planar networks with multiple sources and sinks satisfying that the sum of the supplies at the sources equals the sum of the demands at the sinks. A simple extension of the proposed method allows us to broaden its applicability to solve network flow interdiction problems on planar networks with a single source and sink having no restrictions on the demand and supply. The proposed method can therefore solve a wider class of flow interdiction problems in pseudo-polynomial time than previous pseudo-polynomial algorithms and is the first pseudo-polynomial algorithm that can solve non-trivial planar flow interdiction problems with multiple sources and sinks. Furthermore, we show that the k-densest subgraph problem on planar graphs can be reduced to a network flow interdiction problem on a planar graph with multiple sources and sinks and polynomially bounded input numbers.     

Adjacency posets of planar graphs

In this paper, we show that the dimension of the adjacency poset of a planar graph is at most 8. From below, we show that there is a planar graph whose adjacency poset has dimension 5. We then show that the dimension of the adjacency poset of an outerplanar graph is at most 5. From below, we show that there is an outerplanar graph whose adjacency poset has dimension 4. We also show that the dimension of the adjacency poset of a planar bipartite graph is at most 4. This result is best possible. More generally, the dimension of the adjacency poset of a graph is bounded as a function of its genus and so is the dimension of the vertex-face poset of such a graph.