No Arabic abstract
K{a}rolyi, Pach, and T{o}th proved that every 2-edge-colored straight-line drawing of the complete graph contains a monochromatic plane spanning tree. It is open if this statement generalizes to other classes of drawings, specifically, to simple drawings of the complete graph. These are drawings where edges are represented by Jordan arcs, any two of which intersect at most once. We present two partial results towards such a generalization. First, we show that the statement holds for cylindrical simple drawings. (In a cylindrical drawing, all vertices are placed on two concentric circles and no edge crosses either circle.) Second, we introduce a relaxation of the problem in which the graph is $k$-edge-colored, and the target structure must be hypochromatic, that is, avoid (at least) one color class. In this setting, we show that every $lceil (n+5)/6rceil$-edge-colored monotone simple drawing of $K_n$ contains a hypochromatic plane spanning tree. (In a monotone drawing, every edge is represented as an $x$-monotone curve.)
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.
Given a colored point set in the plane, a perfect rainbow polygon is a simple polygon that contains exactly one point of each color, either in its interior or on its boundary. Let $operatorname{rb-index}(S)$ denote the smallest size of a perfect rainbow polygon for a colored point set $S$, and let $operatorname{rb-index}(k)$ be the maximum of $operatorname{rb-index}(S)$ over all $k$-colored point sets in general position; that is, every $k$-colored point set $S$ has a perfect rainbow polygon with at most $operatorname{rb-index}(k)$ vertices. In this paper, we determine the values of $operatorname{rb-index}(k)$ up to $k=7$, which is the first case where $operatorname{rb-index}(k) eq k$, and we prove that for $kge 5$, [ frac{40lfloor (k-1)/2 rfloor -8}{19} %Birgit: leqoperatorname{rb-index}(k)leq 10 bigglfloorfrac{k}{7}biggrfloor + 11. ] Furthermore, for a $k$-colored set of $n$ points in the plane in general position, a perfect rainbow polygon with at most $10 lfloorfrac{k}{7}rfloor + 11$ vertices can be computed in $O(nlog n)$ time.
In studying properties of simple drawings of the complete graph in the sphere, two natural questions arose for us: can an edge have multiple segments on the boundary of the same face? and is each face the intersection of sides of 3-cycles? The second is asserted to be obvious in two previously published articles, but when asked, authors of both papers were unable to provide a proof. We present a proof. The first is quite easily proved and the technique yields a third, even simpler, fact: no three edges at a vertex all have internal points incident with the same face.
The Harary--Hill conjecture, still open after more than 50 years, asserts that the crossing number of the complete graph $K_n$ is $ H(n) = frac 1 4 leftlfloorfrac{mathstrut n}{mathstrut 2}rightrfloor leftlfloorfrac{mathstrut n-1}{mathstrut 2}rightrfloor leftlfloorfrac{mathstrut n-2}{mathstrut 2}rightrfloor leftlfloorfrac{mathstrut n-3}{mathstrut 2}right rfloor$. Abrego et al. introduced the notion of shellability of a drawing $D$ of $K_n$. They proved that if $D$ is $s$-shellable for some $sgeqlfloorfrac{n}{2}rfloor$, then $D$ has at least $H(n)$ crossings. This is the first combinatorial condition on a drawing that guarantees at least $H(n)$ crossings. In this work, we generalize the concept of $s$-shellability to bishellability, where the former implies the latter in the sense that every $s$-shellable drawing is, for any $b leq s-2$, also $b$-bishellable. Our main result is that $(lfloor frac{n}{2} rfloor!-!2)$-bishellability of a drawing $D$ of $K_n$ also guarantees, with a simpler proof than for $s$-shellability, that $D$ has at least $H(n)$ crossings. We exhibit a drawing of $K_{11}$ that has $H(11)$ crossings, is 3-bishellable, and is not $s$-shellable for any $sgeq5$. This shows that we have properly extended the class of drawings for which the Harary-Hill Conjecture is proved. Moreover, we provide an infinite family of drawings of $K_n$ that are $(lfloor frac{n}{2} rfloor!-!2)$-bishellable, but not $s$-shellable for any $sgeqlfloorfrac{n}{2}rfloor$.
We study an algorithmic problem that is motivated by ink minimization for sparse set visualizations. Our input is a set of points in the plane which are either blue, red, or purple. Blue points belong exclusively to the blue set, red points belong exclusively to the red set, and purple points belong to both sets. A emph{red-blue-purple spanning graph} (RBP spanning graph) is a set of edges connecting the points such that the subgraph induced by the red and purple points is connected, and the subgraph induced by the blue and purple points is connected. We study the geometric properties of minimum RBP spanning graphs and the algorithmic problems associated with computing them. Specifically, we show that the general problem can be solved in polynomial time using matroid techniques. In addition, we discuss more efficient algorithms for the case in which points are located on a line or a circle, and also describe a fast $(frac 12rho+1)$-approximation algorithm, where $rho$ is the Steiner ratio.