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 the Recognition of Fan-Planar and Maximal Outer-Fan-Planar Graphs

Fan-planar graphs were recently introduced as a generalization of 1-planar graphs. A graph is fan-planar if it can be embedded in the plane, such that each edge that is crossed more than once, is crossed by a bundle of two or more edges incident to a common vertex. A graph is outer-fan-planar if it has a fan-planar embedding in which every vertex is on the outer face. If, in addition, the insertion of an edge destroys its outer-fan-planarity, then it is maximal outer-fan-planar. In this paper, we present a polynomial-time algorithm to test whether a given graph is maximal outer-fan-planar. The algorithm can also be employed to produce an outer-fan-planar embedding, if one exists. On the negative side, we show that testing fan-planarity of a graph is NP-hard, for the case where the rotation system (i.e., the cyclic order of the edges around each vertex) is given

Rectangular Layouts and Contact Graphs

Contact graphs of isothetic rectangles unify many concepts from applications including VLSI and architectural design, computational geometry, and GIS. Minimizing the area of their corresponding {\em rectangular layouts} is a key problem. We study the area-optimization problem and show that it is NP-hard to find a minimum-area rectangular layout of a given contact graph. We present O(n)-time algorithms that construct $O(n^2)$-area rectangular layouts for general contact graphs and $O(n\log n)$-area rectangular layouts for trees. (For trees, this is an $O(\log n)$-approximation algorithm.) We also present an infinite family of graphs (rsp., trees) that require $\Omega(n^2)$ (rsp., $\Omega(n\log n)$) area. We derive these results by presenting a new characterization of graphs that admit rectangular layouts using the related concept of {\em rectangular duals}. A corollary to our results relates the class of graphs that admit rectangular layouts to {\em rectangle of influence drawings}.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures, 55 references, 1 appendi

Curve-constrained drawings of planar graphs

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Polyline Drawings with Topological Constraints

Let G be a simple topological graph and let Gamma be a polyline drawing of G. We say that Gamma partially preserves the topology of G if it has the same external boundary, the same rotation system, and the same set of crossings as G. Drawing Gamma fully preserves the topology of G if the planarization of G and the planarization of Gamma have the same planar embedding. We show that if the set of crossing-free edges of G forms a connected spanning subgraph, then G admits a polyline drawing that partially preserves its topology and that has curve complexity at most three (i.e., at most three bends per edge). If, however, the set of crossing-free edges of G is not a connected spanning subgraph, the curve complexity may be Omega(sqrt{n}). Concerning drawings that fully preserve the topology, we show that if G has skewness k, it admits one such drawing with curve complexity at most 2k; for skewness-1 graphs, the curve complexity can be reduced to one, which is a tight bound. We also consider optimal 2-plane graphs and discuss trade-offs between curve complexity and crossing angle resolution of drawings that fully preserve the topology