Graph drawings with few slopes

The slope-number of a graph G is the minimum number of distinct edge slopes in a straight-line drawing of G in the plane. We prove that for Δ5 and all large n, there is a Δ-regular n-vertex graph with slope-number at least . This is the best known lower bound on the slope-number of a graph with bounded degree. We prove upper and lower bounds on the slope-number of complete bipartite graphs. We prove a general upper bound on the slope-number of an arbitrary graph in terms of its bandwidth. It follows that the slope-number of interval graphs, cocomparability graphs, and AT-free graphs is at most a function of the maximum degree. We prove that graphs of bounded degree and bounded treewidth have slope-number at most . Finally we prove that every graph has a drawing with one bend per edge, in which the number of slopes is at most one more than the maximum degree. In a companion paper, planar drawings of graphs with few slopes are also considered.     

Planar segment visibility graphs

Given a set of n disjoint line segments in the plane, the segment visibility graph is the graph whose 2n vertices correspond to the endpoints of the line segments and whose edges connect every pair of vertices whose corresponding endpoints can see each other. In this paper we characterize and provide a polynomial time recognition algorithm for planar segment visibility graphs. Actually, we characterize segment visibility graphs that do not contain the complete graph K₅ as a minor, and show that this class is the same as the class of planar segment visibility graphs. We use and prove the fact that every segment visibility graph contains K₄ as a subgraph. In fact, we prove a stronger result: every set of n line segments determines at least n−3 empty convex quadrilaterals.     

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.     

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.     

Chromatic numbers and products

Let f(n) be the smallest number so that there are two n chromatic graphs whose product has chromatic number f(n). Under the assumption that a certain sharper result than one obtained by Duffus et al. [On the chromatic number of the product of graphs, J. Graph Theory 9 (1985) 487–495], and Welzl [Symmetric graphs and interpretations, J. Combin. Theory, Sci. B 37 (1984) 235–244], holds we will prove that f(n)n/2.     

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.     

Augmenting the connectivity of geometric graphs

Let G be a connected plane geometric graph with n vertices. In this paper, we study bounds on the number of edges required to be added to G to obtain 2-vertex or 2-edge connected plane geometric graphs. In particular, we show that for G to become 2-edge connected, additional edges are required in some cases and that additional edges are always sufficient. For the special case of plane geometric trees, these bounds decrease to and , respectively.     

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.     

The integrity of a cubic graph

Integrity, a measure of network reliability, is defined as

where G is a graph with vertex set V and m(G−S) denotes the order of the largest component of G−S. We prove an upper bound of the following form on the integrity of any cubic graph with n vertices:

Moreover, there exist an infinite family of connected cubic graphs whose integrity satisfies a linear lower bound I(G)>βn for some constant β. We provide a value for β, but it is likely not best possible. To prove the upper bound we first solve the following extremal problem. What is the least number of vertices in a cubic graph whose removal results in an acyclic graph? The solution (with a few minor exceptions) is that n/3 vertices suffice and this is best possible.     

On finding widest empty curved corridors

An -siphon of width w is the locus of points in the plane that are at the same distance w from a 1-corner polygonal chain C such that is the interior angle of C. Given a set P of n points in the plane and a fixed angle , we want to compute the widest empty -siphon that splits P into two non-empty sets. We present an efficient O(nlog³n)-time algorithm for computing the widest oriented -siphon through P such that the orientation of a half-line of C is known. We also propose an O(n³log²n)-time algorithm for the widest arbitrarily-oriented version and an Θ(nlogn)-time algorithm for the widest arbitrarily-oriented -siphon anchored at a given point.     

Hamiltonian cycles in n-factor-critical graphs

A graph G is said to be n-factor-critical if G−S has a 1-factor for any SV(G) with |S|=n. In this paper, we prove that if G is a 2-connected n-factor-critical graph of order p with , then G is hamiltonian with some exceptions. To extend this theorem, we define a (k,n)-factor-critical graph to be a graph G such that G−S has a k-factor for any SV(G) with |S|=n. We conjecture that if G is a 2-connected (k,n)-factor-critical graph of order p with , then G is hamiltonian with some exceptions. In this paper, we characterize all such graphs that satisfy the assumption, but are not 1-tough. Using this, we verify the conjecture for k2.     

Bounds on eigenvalues and chromatic numbers

We give new bounds on eigenvalue of graphs which imply some known bounds. In particular, if T(G) is the maximum sum of degrees of vertices adjacent to a vertex in a graph G, the largest eigenvalue ρ(G) of G satisfies with equality if and only if either G is regular or G is bipartite and such that all vertices in the same part have the same degree. Consequently, we prove that the chromatic number of G is at most with equality if and only if G is an odd cycle or a complete graph, which implies Brook's theorem. A generalization of this result is also given.     

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.     

Cycle Covers of Planar 2-Edge-Connected Graphs

A graph with n vertices is said to have a small cycle cover provided its edges can be covered with at most (2n ? 1)/3 cycles. Bondy [2] has conjectured that every 2-connected graph has a small cycle cover. In [3] Lai and Lai prove Bondy’s conjecture for plane triangulations. In [1] the author extends this result to all planar 3-connected graphs, by proving that they can be covered by at most (n + 1)/2 cycles. In this paper we show that Bondy’s conjecture holds for all planar 2-connected graphs. We also show that all planar 2-edge-connected graphs can be covered by at most (3n ? 3)/4 cycles and we show an infinite family of graphs for which this bound is attained.     

Equilibrium Placement of Periodic Graphs and Convexity of Plane Tilings

We study realizations of periodic graphs in Euclidean spaces with each vertex in the center of gravity of its neighbors. As a first application, we show that every planar, 3-connected, 2-periodic graph can be drawn into the plane with convex faces such that the drawing realizes every combinatorial automorphism of the graph as an isometric symmetry. This extends results by Thomassen and by Mani-Levitska, Guigas, and Klee.     

Drawing planar 3-trees with given face areas

We study straight-line drawings of planar graphs such that each interior face has a prescribed area. It was known that such drawings exist for all planar graphs with maximum degree 3. We show here that such drawings exist for all planar partial 3-trees, i.e., subgraphs of a triangulated planar graph obtained by repeatedly inserting a vertex in one triangle and connecting it to all vertices of the triangle. Moreover, vertices have rational coordinates if the face areas are rational, and we can bound the resolution. We also give some negative results for other graph classes.     

Augmenting a graph of minimum degree 2 to have two disjoint total dominating sets

A total dominating set of a graph is a set of vertices such that every vertex is adjacent to a vertex in the set. We show that given a graph of order n with minimum degree at least 2, one can add at most edges such that the resulting graph has two disjoint total dominating sets, and this bound is best possible.     

The Planar Slope Number of Planar Partial 3-Trees of Bounded Degree

It is known that every planar graph has a planar embedding where edges are represented by non-crossing straight-line segments. We study the planar slope number, i.e., the minimum number of distinct edge-slopes in such a drawing of a planar graph with maximum degree Δ. We show that the planar slope number of every planar partial 3-tree and also every plane partial 3-tree is at most O(Δ ⁵). In particular, we answer the question of Dujmovi? et al. (Comput Geom 38(3):194–212, 2007) whether there is a function f such that plane maximal outerplanar graphs can be drawn using at most f(Δ) slopes.     

Line-segment intersection made in-place

We present a space-efficient algorithm for reporting all k intersections induced by a set of n line segments in the plane. Our algorithm is an in-place variant of Balaban's algorithm and, in the worst case, runs in time using extra words of memory in addition to the space used for the input to the algorithm.     

Extending matchings in planar graphs V

A graph G on at least 2n + 2 vertices in n-extendable if every set of n independent edges extends to (i.e., is a subset of) a perfect matching in G. It is known that no planar graph is 3-extendable. In the present paper we continue to study 2-extendability in the plane. Suppose independent edges e₁ and e₂ are such that the removal of their endvertices leaves at least one odd component C_o. The subgraph G[V(C_o) V(e₁) V(e₂)] is called a generalized butterfly (or gbutterfly). Clearly, a 2-extendable graph can contain no gbutterfly. The converse, however, is false.

We improve upon a previous result by proving that if G is 4-connected, locally connected and planar with an even number of vertices and has no gbutterfly, it is 2-extendable. Sharpness with respect to the various hypotheses of this result is discussed.