Converting triangulations to quadrangulations

We study the problem of converting triangulated domains to quadrangulations, under a variety of constraints. We obtain a variety of characterizations for when a triangulation (of some structure such as a polygon, set of points, line segments or planar subdivision) admits a quadrangulation without the use of Steiner points, or with a bounded number of Steiner points. We also investigate the effect of demanding that the Steiner points be added in the interior or exterior of a triangulated simple polygon and propose efficient algorithms for accomplishing these tasks. For example, we give a linear-time method that quadrangulates a triangulated simple polygon with the minimum number of outer Steiner points required for that triangulation. We show that this minimum can be at most n/3, and that there exist polygons that require this many such Steiner points. We also show that a triangulated simple n-gon may be quadrangulated with at most n/4 Steiner points inside the polygon and at most one outside. This algorithm also allows us to obtain, in linear time, quadrangulations from general triangulated domains (such as triangulations of polygons with holes, a set of points or line segments) with a bounded number of Steiner points.     

Spanning bipartite quadrangulations of even triangulations

A triangulation (resp., a quadrangulation) on a surface is a map of a loopless graph (possibly with multiple edges) on with each face bounded by a closed walk of length 3 (resp., 4). It is easy to see that every triangulation on any surface has a spanning quadrangulation. Kündgen and Thomassen proved that every even triangulation (ie, each vertex has even degree) on the torus has a spanning nonbipartite quadrangulation, and that if has sufficiently large edge width, then also has a bipartite one. In this paper, we prove that an even triangulation on the torus admits a spanning bipartite quadrangulation if and only if does not have as a subgraph, and moreover, we give some other results for the problem.     

K6‐minors in triangulations and complete quadrangulations

In this paper, we shall prove that a projective‐planar (resp., toroidal) triangulation G has K₆ as a minor if and only if G has no quadrangulation isomorphic to K₄ (resp., K₅ ) as a subgraph. As an application of the theorems, we can prove that Hadwiger's conjecture is true for projective‐planar and toroidal triangulations. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 60: 302‐312, 2009     

A bijection for triangulations, quadrangulations, pentagulations, etc.

A d-angulation is a planar map with faces of degree d. We present for each integer d?3 a bijection between the class of d-angulations of girth d (i.e., with no cycle of length less than d) and a class of decorated plane trees. Each of the bijections is obtained by specializing a “master bijection” which extends an earlier construction of the first author. Our construction unifies known bijections by Fusy, Poulalhon and Schaeffer for triangulations (d=3) and by Schaeffer for quadrangulations (d=4). For d?5, both the bijections and the enumerative results are new.We also extend our bijections so as to enumerate p-gonal d-angulations (d-angulations with a simple boundary of length p) of girth d. We thereby recover bijectively the results of Brown for simple p-gonal triangulations and simple 2p-gonal quadrangulations and establish new results for d?5.A key ingredient in our proofs is a class of orientations characterizing d-angulations of girth d. Earlier results by Schnyder and by De Fraysseix and Ossona de Mendez showed that simple triangulations and simple quadrangulations are characterized by the existence of orientations having respectively indegree 3 and 2 at each inner vertex. We extend this characterization by showing that a d-angulation has girth d if and only if the graph obtained by duplicating each edge d−2 times admits an orientation having indegree d at each inner vertex.     

On triangulations of orbifolds and formality

Annals of Global Analysis and Geometry - For an orbifold, there are two naturally associated differential graded algebras, one is the de Rham algebra of orbifold differential forms and the other...     

Computing convex quadrangulations

We use projected Delaunay tetrahedra and a maximum independent set approach to compute large subsets of convex quadrangulations on a given set of points in the plane. The new method improves over the popular pairing method based on triangulating the point set.     

On properties of random dissections and triangulations

In this work we study properties of random graphs that are drawn uniformly at random from the class consisting of biconnected outerplanar graphs, or equivalently dissections of large convex polygons. We obtain very sharp concentration results for the number of vertices of any given degree, and for the number of induced copies of a given fixed graph. Our method gives similar results for random graphs from the class of triangulations of convex polygons.     

On well-covered triangulations: Part III

A graph G is said to be well-covered if every maximal independent set of vertices has the same cardinality. A planar (simple) graph in which each face is a triangle is called a triangulation. It was proved in an earlier paper Finbow et al. (2004) [3] that there are no 5-connected planar well-covered triangulations, and in Finbow et al. (submitted for publication) [4] that there are exactly four 4-connected well-covered triangulations containing two adjacent vertices of degree 4. It is the aim of the present paper to complete the characterization of 4-connected well-covered triangulations by showing that each such graph contains two adjacent vertices of degree 4.     

On a property of minimal triangulations

A graph H has the property MT, if for all graphs G, G is H-free if and only if every minimal (chordal) triangulation of G is H-free. We show that a graph H satisfies property MT if and only if H is edgeless, H is connected and is an induced subgraph of P₅, or H has two connected components and is an induced subgraph of 2P₃.This completes the results of Parra and Scheffler, who have shown that MT holds for H=P_k, the path on k vertices, if and only if k?5 [A. Parra, P. Scheffler, Characterizations and algorithmic applications of chordal graph embeddings, Discrete Applied Mathematics 79 (1997) 171-188], and of Meister, who proved that MT holds for ?P₂, ? copies of a P₂, if and only if ??2 [D. Meister, A complete characterisation of minimal triangulations of 2K₂-free graphs, Discrete Mathematics 306 (2006) 3327-3333].     

On connectivity of triangulations of manifolds

An edge of a k-graph is “separating” if there is a k-coloring of the vertices assigning all colors to that edge only. We prove that no edge of any triangulation of any manifold of any dimension is separating.     

On well-covered triangulations: Part II

A graph G is said to be well-covered if every maximal independent set of vertices has the same cardinality. A planar (simple) graph in which each face is a triangle is called a triangulation. It was proved in an earlier paper [A. Finbow, B. Hartnell, R. Nowakowski, M. Plummer, On well-covered triangulations: Part I, Discrete Appl. Math., 132, 2004, 97-108] that there are no 5-connected planar well-covered triangulations. It is the aim of the present paper to completely determine the 4-connected well-covered triangulations containing two adjacent vertices of degree 4. In a subsequent paper [A. Finbow, B. Hartnell, R. Nowakowski, M. Plummer, On well-covered triangulations: Part III (submitted for publication)], we show that every 4-connected well-covered triangulation contains two adjacent vertices of degree 4 and hence complete the task of characterizing all 4-connected well-covered planar triangulations. There turn out to be only four such graphs. This stands in stark contrast to the fact that there are infinitely many 3-connected well-covered planar triangulations.     

Spanning quadrangulations of triangulated surfaces

In this paper we study alternating cycles in graphs embedded in a surface. We observe that 4-vertex-colorability of a triangulation on a surface can be expressed in terms of spanninq quadrangulations, and we establish connections between spanning quadrangulations and cycles in the dual graph which are noncontractible and alternating with respect to a perfect matching. We show that the dual graph of an Eulerian triangulation of an orientable surface other than the sphere has a perfect matching M and an M-alternating noncontractible cycle. As a consequence, every Eulerian triangulation of the torus has a nonbipartite spanning quadrangulation. For an Eulerian triangulation G of the projective plane the situation is different: If the dual graph \(G^*\) is nonbipartite, then \(G^*\) has no noncontractible alternating cycle, and all spanning quadrangulations of G are bipartite. If the dual graph \(G^*\) is bipartite, then it has a noncontractible, M-alternating cycle for some (and hence any) perfect matching, G has a bipartite spanning quadrangulation and also a nonbipartite spanning quadrangulation.     

On the average length of Delaunay triangulations

We shall show that on the average, the total length of a Delaunay triangulation is of the same order as that of a minimum triangulation, under the assumption that our points are drawn from a homogeneous planar Poisson point distribution.     

On covering bridged plane triangulations with balls

We show that every plane graph of diameter 2r in which all inner faces are triangles and all inner vertices have degree larger than 5 can be covered with two balls of radius r. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 44: 65–80, 2003     

On discontinuous Galerkin method and semiregular family of triangulations

Discretization of second order elliptic partial differential equations by discontinuous Galerkin method often results in numerical schemes with penalties. In this paper we analyze these penalized schemes in the context of quite general triangular meshes satisfying only a semiregularity assumption. A new (modified) penalty term is presented and theoretical properties are proven together with illustrative numerical results. This work is a part of the research project MSM 0021620839 financed by MSMT and was partly supported by the project No. 201/04/1503 of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic.