4-labelings and grid embeddings of plane quadrangulations

We show that each quadrangulation on $n$ vertices has a closed rectangle of influence drawing on the $(n-2) \times (n-2)$ grid. Further, we present a simple algorithm to obtain a straight-line drawing of a quadrangulation on the $\Big\lceil\frac{n}{2}\Big\rceil \times \Big\lceil\frac{3n}{4}\Big\rceil$ grid. This is not optimal but has the advantage over other existing algorithms that it is not needed to add edges to the quadrangulation to make it $4$-connected. The algorithm is based on angle labeling and simple face counting in regions analogous to Schnyder's grid embedding for triangulation. This extends previous results on book embeddings for quadrangulations from Felsner, Huemer, Kappes, and Orden (2008). Our approach also yields a representation of a quadrangulation as a pair of rectangulations with a curious property

4-labelings and grid embeddings of plane quadrangulations

AbstractA straight-line drawing of a planar graph G is a closed rectangle-of-influence drawing if for each edge uv, the closed axis-parallel rectangle with opposite corners u and v contains no other vertices. We show that each quadrangulation on n vertices has a closed rectangle-of-influence drawing on the (n−3)×(n−3) grid.The algorithm is based on angle labeling and simple face counting in regions. This answers the question of what would be a grid embedding of quadrangulations analogous to Schnyder’s classical algorithm for embedding triangulations and extends previous results on book embeddings for quadrangulations from Felsner, Huemer, Kappes, and Orden.A further compaction step yields a straight-line drawing of a quadrangulation on the (⌈n2⌉−1)×(⌈3n4⌉−1) grid. The advantage over other existing algorithms is that it is not necessary to add edges to the quadrangulation to make it 4-connected