Computational Geometry Column 39

The resolution of a decades-old open problem is described: polygonal chains cannot lock in the plane.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in SIGACT News and in Int. J. Comp. Geom. App

A short proof of rigidity of convex polytopes

We present a much simplified proof of Dehn's theorem on the infinitesimal rigidity of convex polytopes. Our approach is based on the ideas of Trushkina and Schramm.Comment: to appear in Siberian Journal of Mathematics; 5 pages 2 figure

A necessary condition for generic rigidity of bar-and-joint frameworks in dd-space

A graph $G=(V,E)$ is $d$-sparse if each subset $X\subseteq V$ with $|X|\geq d$ induces at most $d|X|-{{d+1}\choose{2}}$ edges in $G$. Maxwell showed in 1864 that a necessary condition for a generic bar-and-joint framework with at least $d+1$ vertices to be rigid in ${\mathbb R}^d$ is that $G$ should have a $d$-sparse subgraph with $d|X|-{{d+1}\choose{2}}$ edges. This necessary condition is also sufficient when $d=1,2$ but not when $d\geq 3$. Cheng and Sitharam strengthened Maxwell's condition by showing that every maximal $d$-sparse subgraph of $G$ should have $d|X|-{{d+1}\choose{2}}$ edges when $d=3$. We extend their result to all $d\leq 11$.Comment: There was an error in the proof of Theorem 3.3(b) in version 1 of this paper. A weaker statement was proved in version 2 and then used to derive the main result Theorem 4.1 when $d\leq 5$. The proof technique was subsequently refined in collaboration with Hakan Guler to extend this result to all $d\leq 11$ in Theorem 3.3 of version

Generic Rigidity Matroids with Dilworth Truncations

We prove that the linear matroid that defines generic rigidity of $d$-dimensional body-rod-bar frameworks (i.e., structures consisting of disjoint bodies and rods mutually linked by bars) can be obtained from the union of ${d+1 \choose 2}$ graphic matroids by applying variants of Dilworth truncation $n_r$ times, where $n_r$ denotes the number of rods. This leads to an alternative proof of Tay's combinatorial characterizations of generic rigidity of rod-bar frameworks and that of identified body-hinge frameworks

Mixed Volume Techniques for Embeddings of Laman Graphs

Determining the number of embeddings of Laman graph frameworks is an open problem which corresponds to understanding the solutions of the resulting systems of equations. In this paper we investigate the bounds which can be obtained from the viewpoint of Bernstein's Theorem. The focus of the paper is to provide the methods to study the mixed volume of suitable systems of polynomial equations obtained from the edge length constraints. While in most cases the resulting bounds are weaker than the best known bounds on the number of embeddings, for some classes of graphs the bounds are tight.Comment: Thorough revision of the first version. (13 pages, 4 figures

Henneberg constructions and covers of cone-Laman graphs

We give Henneberg-type constructions for three families of sparse colored graphs arising in the rigidity theory of periodic and other forced symmetric frameworks. The proof method, which works with Laman-sparse finite covers of colored graphs highlights the connection between these sparse colored families and the well-studied matroidal (k, l)-sparse families.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure

On the Number of Embeddings of Minimally Rigid Graphs

Rigid frameworks in some Euclidian space are embedded graphs having a unique local realization (up to Euclidian motions) for the given edge lengths, although globally they may have several. We study the number of distinct planar embeddings of minimally rigid graphs with $n$ vertices. We show that, modulo planar rigid motions, this number is at most ${{2n-4}\choose {n-2}} \approx 4^n$. We also exhibit several families which realize lower bounds of the order of $2^n$, $2.21^n$ and $2.88^n$. For the upper bound we use techniques from complex algebraic geometry, based on the (projective) Cayley-Menger variety $CM^{2,n}(C)\subset P_{{{n}\choose {2}}-1}(C)$ over the complex numbers $C$. In this context, point configurations are represented by coordinates given by squared distances between all pairs of points. Sectioning the variety with $2n-4$ hyperplanes yields at most $deg(CM^{2,n})$ zero-dimensional components, and one finds this degree to be $D^{2,n}={1/2}{{2n-4}\choose {n-2}}$. The lower bounds are related to inductive constructions of minimally rigid graphs via Henneberg sequences. The same approach works in higher dimensions. In particular we show that it leads to an upper bound of $2 D^{3,n}= {\frac{2^{n-3}}{n-2}}{{n-6}\choose{n-3}}$ for the number of spatial embeddings with generic edge lengths of the 1-skeleton of a simplicial polyhedron, up to rigid motions

Recognizing Planar Laman Graphs

Laman graphs are the minimally rigid graphs in the plane. We present two algorithms for recognizing planar Laman graphs. A simple algorithm with running time O(n^(3/2)) and a more complicated algorithm with running time O(n log^3 n) based on involved planar network flow algorithms. Both improve upon the previously fastest algorithm for general graphs by Gabow and Westermann [Algorithmica, 7(5-6):465 - 497, 1992] with running time O(n sqrt{n log n}). To solve this problem we introduce two algorithms (with the running times stated above) that check whether for a directed planar graph G, disjoint sets S, T subseteq V(G), and a fixed k the following connectivity condition holds: for each vertex s in S there are k directed paths from s to T pairwise having only vertex s in common. This variant of connectivity seems interesting on its own

From graphs to tensegrity structures: Geometric and symbolic approaches

A form-finding problem for tensegrity structures is studied; given an abstract graph, we show an algorithm to provide a necessary condition for it to be the underlying graph of a tensegrity in $\mathbb{R}^d$ (typically $d=2,3$) with vertices in general position. Furthermore, for a certain class of graphs our algorithm allows to obtain necessary and sufficient conditions on the relative position of the vertices in order to underlie a tensegrity, for what we propose both a geometric and a symbolic approach.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures; final versio