No Arabic abstract
When can a plane graph with prescribed edge lengths and prescribed angles (from among ${0,180^circ, 360^circ$}) be folded flat to lie in an infinitesimally thin line, without crossings? This problem generalizes the classic theory of single-vertex flat origami with prescribed mountain-valley assignment, which corresponds to the case of a cycle graph. We characterize such flat-foldable plane graphs by two obviously necessary but also sufficient conditions, proving a conjecture made in 2001: the angles at each vertex should sum to $360^circ$, and every face of the graph must itself be flat foldable. This characterization leads to a linear-time algorithm for testing flat foldability of plane graphs with prescribed edge lengths and angles, and a polynomial-time algorithm for counting the number of distinct folded states.
Partial edge drawing (PED) is a drawing style for non-planar graphs, in which edges are drawn only partially as pairs of opposing stubs on the respective end-vertices. In a PED, by erasing the central parts of edges, all edge crossings and the resulting visual clutter are hidden in the undrawn parts of the edges. In symmetric partial edge drawings (SPEDs), the two stubs of each edge are required to have the same length. It is known that maximizing the ink (or the total stub length) when transforming a straight-line graph drawing with crossings into a SPED is tractable for 2-plane input drawings, but NP-hard for unrestricted inputs. We show that the problem remains NP-hard even for 3-plane input drawings and establish NP-hardness of ink maximization for PEDs of 4-plane graphs. Yet, for k-plane input drawings whose edge intersection graph forms a collection of trees or, more generally, whose intersection graph has bounded treewidth, we present efficient algorithms for computing maximum-ink PEDs and SPEDs. We implemented the treewidth-based algorithms and show a brief experimental evaluation.
We consider the construction of a polygon $P$ with $n$ vertices whose turning angles at the vertices are given by a sequence $A=(alpha_0,ldots, alpha_{n-1})$, $alpha_iin (-pi,pi)$, for $iin{0,ldots, n-1}$. The problem of realizing $A$ by a polygon can be seen as that of constructing a straight-line drawing of a graph with prescribed angles at vertices, and hence, it is a special case of the well studied problem of constructing an emph{angle graph}. In 2D, we characterize sequences $A$ for which every generic polygon $Psubset mathbb{R}^2$ realizing $A$ has at least $c$ crossings, for every $cin mathbb{N}$, and describe an efficient algorithm that constructs, for a given sequence $A$, a generic polygon $Psubset mathbb{R}^2$ that realizes $A$ with the minimum number of crossings. In 3D, we describe an efficient algorithm that tests whether a given sequence $A$ can be realized by a (not necessarily generic) polygon $Psubset mathbb{R}^3$, and for every realizable sequence the algorithm finds a realization.
In the Euclidean TSP with neighborhoods (TSPN), we are given a collection of n regions (neighborhoods) and we seek a shortest tour that visits each region. As a generalization of the classical Euclidean TSP, TSPN is also NP-hard. In this paper, we present new approximation results for the TSPN, including (1) a constant-factor approximation algorithm for the case of arbitrary connected neighborhoods having comparable diameters; and (2) a PTAS for the important special case of disjoint unit disk neighborhoods (or nearly disjoint, nearly-unit disks). Our methods also yield improved approximation ratios for various special classes of neighborhoods, which have previously been studied. Further, we give a linear-time O(1)-approximation algorithm for the case of neighborhoods that are (infinite) straight lines.
An edge guard set of a plane graph $G$ is a subset $Gamma$ of edges of $G$ such that each face of $G$ is incident to an endpoint of an edge in $Gamma$. Such a set is said to guard $G$. We improve the known upper bounds on the number of edges required to guard any $n$-vertex embedded planar graph $G$: 1- We present a simple inductive proof for a theorem of Everett and Rivera-Campo (1997) that $G$ can be guarded with at most $ frac{2n}{5}$ edges, then extend this approach with a deeper analysis to yield an improved bound of $frac{3n}{8}$ edges for any plane graph. 2- We prove that there exists an edge guard set of $G$ with at most $frac{n}{3}+frac{alpha}{9}$ edges, where $alpha$ is the number of quadrilateral faces in $G$. This improves the previous bound of $frac{n}{3} + alpha$ by Bose, Kirkpatrick, and Li (2003). Moreover, if there is no short path between any two quadrilateral faces in $G$, we show that $frac{n}{3}$ edges suffice, removing the dependence on $alpha$.
We study $k$-page upward book embeddings ($k$UBEs) of $st$-graphs, that is, book embeddings of single-source single-sink directed acyclic graphs on $k$ pages with the additional requirement that the vertices of the graph appear in a topological ordering along the spine of the book. We show that testing whether a graph admits a $k$UBE is NP-complete for $kgeq 3$. A hardness result for this problem was previously known only for $k = 6$ [Heath and Pemmaraju, 1999]. Motivated by this negative result, we focus our attention on $k=2$. On the algorithmic side, we present polynomial-time algorithms for testing the existence of $2$UBEs of planar $st$-graphs with branchwidth $beta$ and of plane $st$-graphs whose faces have a special structure. These algorithms run in $O(f(beta)cdot n+n^3)$ time and $O(n)$ time, respectively, where $f$ is a singly-exponential function on $beta$. Moreover, on the combinatorial side, we present two notable families of plane $st$-graphs that always admit an embedding-preserving $2$UBE.