Counting Carambolas

We give upper and lower bounds on the maximum and minimum number of geometric configurations of various kinds present (as subgraphs) in a triangulation of $n$ points in the plane. Configurations of interest include \emph{convex polygons}, \emph{star-shaped polygons} and \emph{monotone paths}. We also consider related problems for \emph{directed} planar straight-line graphs.Comment: update reflects journal version, to appear in Graphs and Combinatorics; 18 pages, 13 figure

Mixing Times of Markov Chains on Degree Constrained Orientations of Planar Graphs

We study Markov chains for $\alpha$-orientations of plane graphs, these are orientations where the outdegree of each vertex is prescribed by the value of a given function $\alpha$. The set of $\alpha$-orientations of a plane graph has a natural distributive lattice structure. The moves of the up-down Markov chain on this distributive lattice corresponds to reversals of directed facial cycles in the $\alpha$-orientation. We have a positive and several negative results regarding the mixing time of such Markov chains. A 2-orientation of a plane quadrangulation is an orientation where every inner vertex has outdegree 2. We show that there is a class of plane quadrangulations such that the up-down Markov chain on the 2-orientations of these quadrangulations is slowly mixing. On the other hand the chain is rapidly mixing on 2-orientations of quadrangulations with maximum degree at most 4. Regarding examples for slow mixing we also revisit the case of 3-orientations of triangulations which has been studied before by Miracle et al.. Our examples for slow mixing are simpler and have a smaller maximum degree, Finally we present the first example of a function $\alpha$ and a class of plane triangulations of constant maximum degree such that the up-down Markov chain on the $\alpha$-orientations of these graphs is slowly mixing

Computing k-Modal Embeddings of Planar Digraphs

Given a planar digraph G and a positive even integer k, an embedding of G in the plane is k-modal, if every vertex of G is incident to at most k pairs of consecutive edges with opposite orientations, i.e., the incoming and the outgoing edges at each vertex are grouped by the embedding into at most k sets of consecutive edges with the same orientation. In this paper, we study the k-Modality problem, which asks for the existence of a k-modal embedding of a planar digraph. This combinatorial problem is at the very core of a variety of constrained embedding questions for planar digraphs and flat clustered networks. First, since the 2-Modality problem can be easily solved in linear time, we consider the general k-Modality problem for any value of k>2 and show that the problem is NP-complete for planar digraphs of maximum degree Delta <= k+3. We relate its computational complexity to that of two notions of planarity for flat clustered networks: Planar Intersection-Link and Planar NodeTrix representations. This allows us to answer in the strongest possible way an open question by Di Giacomo [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73915-1_37], concerning the complexity of constructing planar NodeTrix representations of flat clustered networks with small clusters, and to address a research question by Angelini et al. [https://doi.org/10.7155/jgaa.00437], concerning intersection-link representations based on geometric objects that determine complex arrangements. On the positive side, we provide a simple FPT algorithm for partial 2-trees of arbitrary degree, whose running time is exponential in k and linear in the input size. Second, motivated by the recently-introduced planar L-drawings of planar digraphs [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73915-1_36], which require the computation of a 4-modal embedding, we focus our attention on k=4. On the algorithmic side, we show a complexity dichotomy for the 4-Modality problem with respect to Delta, by providing a linear-time algorithm for planar digraphs with Delta <= 6. This algorithmic result is based on decomposing the input digraph into its blocks via BC-trees and each of these blocks into its triconnected components via SPQR-trees. In particular, we are able to show that the constraints imposed on the embedding by the rigid triconnected components can be tackled by means of a small set of reduction rules and discover that the algorithmic core of the problem lies in special instances of NAESAT, which we prove to be always NAE-satisfiable - a result of independent interest that improves on Porschen et al. [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24605-3_14]. Finally, on the combinatorial side, we consider outerplanar digraphs and show that any such a digraph always admits a k-modal embedding with k=4 and that this value of k is best possible for the digraphs in this family

Orientation-Constrained Rectangular Layouts

We construct partitions of rectangles into smaller rectangles from an input consisting of a planar dual graph of the layout together with restrictions on the orientations of edges and junctions of the layout. Such an orientation-constrained layout, if it exists, may be constructed in polynomial time, and all orientation-constrained layouts may be listed in polynomial time per layout.Comment: To appear at Algorithms and Data Structures Symposium, Banff, Canada, August 2009. 12 pages, 5 figure

Superpatterns and Universal Point Sets

An old open problem in graph drawing asks for the size of a universal point set, a set of points that can be used as vertices for straight-line drawings of all n-vertex planar graphs. We connect this problem to the theory of permutation patterns, where another open problem concerns the size of superpatterns, permutations that contain all patterns of a given size. We generalize superpatterns to classes of permutations determined by forbidden patterns, and we construct superpatterns of size n^2/4 + Theta(n) for the 213-avoiding permutations, half the size of known superpatterns for unconstrained permutations. We use our superpatterns to construct universal point sets of size n^2/4 - Theta(n), smaller than the previous bound by a 9/16 factor. We prove that every proper subclass of the 213-avoiding permutations has superpatterns of size O(n log^O(1) n), which we use to prove that the planar graphs of bounded pathwidth have near-linear universal point sets.Comment: GD 2013 special issue of JGA

Optimal Acyclic Hamiltonian Path Completion for Outerplanar Triangulated st-Digraphs (with Application to Upward Topological Book Embeddings)

Given an embedded planar acyclic digraph G, we define the problem of "acyclic hamiltonian path completion with crossing minimization (Acyclic-HPCCM)" to be the problem of determining an hamiltonian path completion set of edges such that, when these edges are embedded on G, they create the smallest possible number of edge crossings and turn G to a hamiltonian digraph. Our results include: --We provide a characterization under which a triangulated st-digraph G is hamiltonian. --For an outerplanar triangulated st-digraph G, we define the st-polygon decomposition of G and, based on its properties, we develop a linear-time algorithm that solves the Acyclic-HPCCM problem with at most one crossing per edge of G. --For the class of st-planar digraphs, we establish an equivalence between the Acyclic-HPCCM problem and the problem of determining an upward 2-page topological book embedding with minimum number of spine crossings. We infer (based on this equivalence) for the class of outerplanar triangulated st-digraphs an upward topological 2-page book embedding with minimum number of spine crossings and at most one spine crossing per edge. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that edge-crossing minimization is studied in conjunction with the acyclic hamiltonian completion problem and the first time that an optimal algorithm with respect to spine crossing minimization is presented for upward topological book embeddings

Straight-line Drawability of a Planar Graph Plus an Edge

We investigate straight-line drawings of topological graphs that consist of a planar graph plus one edge, also called almost-planar graphs. We present a characterization of such graphs that admit a straight-line drawing. The characterization enables a linear-time testing algorithm to determine whether an almost-planar graph admits a straight-line drawing, and a linear-time drawing algorithm that constructs such a drawing, if it exists. We also show that some almost-planar graphs require exponential area for a straight-line drawing

On Visibility Representations of Non-planar Graphs

A rectangle visibility representation (RVR) of a graph consists of an assignment of axis-aligned rectangles to vertices such that for every edge there exists a horizontal or vertical line of sight between the rectangles assigned to its endpoints. Testing whether a graph has an RVR is known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we study the problem of finding an RVR under the assumption that an embedding in the plane of the input graph is fixed and we are looking for an RVR that reflects this embedding. We show that in this case the problem can be solved in polynomial time for general embedded graphs and in linear time for 1-plane graphs (i.e., embedded graphs having at most one crossing per edge). The linear time algorithm uses a precise list of forbidden configurations, which extends the set known for straight-line drawings of 1-plane graphs. These forbidden configurations can be tested for in linear time, and so in linear time we can test whether a 1-plane graph has an RVR and either compute such a representation or report a negative witness. Finally, we discuss some extensions of our study to the case when the embedding is not fixed but the RVR can have at most one crossing per edge