This paper studies planar drawings of graphs in which each vertex is represented as a point along a sequence of horizontal lines, called levels, and each edge is either a horizontal segment or a strictly y -monotone curve. A graph is s -span weakly leveled planar if it admits such a drawing where the edges have span at most s ; the span of an edge is the number of levels it touches minus one. We investigate the problem of computing s -span weakly leveled planar drawings from both the computational and the combinatorial perspectives. We prove the problem to be para-NP-hard with respect to its natural parameter s and investigate its complexity with respect to widely used structural parameters. We show the existence of a polynomial-size kernel with respect to vertex cover number and prove that the problem is FPT when parameterized by treedepth. We also present upper and lower bounds on the span for various graph classes. Notably, we show that cycle trees, a family of 2-outerplanar graphs generalizing Halin graphs, are Θ(log n )-span weakly leveled planar and 4-span weakly leveled planar when 3-connected. As a byproduct of these combinatorial results, we obtain improved bounds on the edge-length ratio of the graph families under consideration.

A k-page book embedding of a directed acyclic graph consists of a topological order of its vertices and a k-coloring of its edges, such that no two edges of the same color cross, that is, their endpoints do not alternate in the order. The minimum value of k for which such an embedding exists is referred to as the page number of the graph. In contrast to general directed acyclic planar graphs, which may have unbounded page number [SIAM J. Comput. 28(5), 1999], it was recently shown that directed acyclic outerplanar graphs have bounded page number. In particular, Jungeblut, Merker and Ueckerdt provided an upper bound of 24,776 on their page number [FOCS 2023: 1937-1952]. In this work, we focus on so-called monotone directed acyclic outerplanar graphs. Starting from a single edge, these graphs are constructed by iteratively connecting a new vertex to the endpoints of an existing edge on the outer face using either two incoming or two outgoing edges incident to it. These graphs have twist-number 4 [GD 2023: 135-151] (i.e., they admit a topological order in which no more than four edges pairwise cross), a property, which was leveraged by Jungeblut, Merker and Ueckerdt to show that their page number is at most 128. We lower this upper bound to 5 and we also provide a lower bound of 4. A notable consequence of our result is a significant improvement of the upper bound on the page number of general directed outerplanar graphs from 24,776 to 1,160.

A well-known conjecture, named after David W. Barnette, asserts that every 3-regular, 3-connected, bipartite, planar graph (for short, Barnette graph) is Hamiltonian. As another step towards addressing Barnette’s conjecture positively, we show that every n-vertex Barnette graph admits a subhamiltonian cycle containing 5n/6 edges, improving upon the previous bound of 2n/3. Equivalently, every Barnette graph admits a 2-page book embedding in which at least 5n/6 consecutive vertex pairs along the spine are connected by edges. As a byproduct, we present a simple proof for a known result that guarantees the existence of Hamiltonian cycles in a certain subclass of Barnette graphs.

A linear layout of a graph defines a total order of the vertices and partitions the edges into either stacks or queues, i.e., crossing-free and non-nested sets of edges along the order, respectively. In this work, we study defective linear layouts that allow forbidden patterns among edges of the same set. Our focus is on k-defective stack layouts and k-defective queue layouts, in which the conflict graph representing the forbidden patterns among the edges of each stack or queue has maximum degree at most k.

A well-known result by Kant [Algorithmica, 1996] implies that n-vertex outerplane graphs admit embedding-preserving planar straight-line grid drawings where the internal faces are convex polygons in O(n²) area. In this paper, we present an algorithm to compute such drawings in O(n¹·⁵) area. We also consider outerplanar drawings in which the internal faces are required to be strictly-convex polygons. In this setting, we consider outerplanar graphs whose weak dual is a path and give a drawing algorithm that achieves Θ(nk²) area, where k is the maximum size of an internal facial cycle.

We study the following question, which has been considered since the 90’s: Does every st-planar graph admit a planar straight-line dominance drawing? We show concrete evidence for the difficulty of this question, by proving that, unlike upward planar straight-line drawings, planar straight-line dominance drawings with prescribed y-coordinates do not always exist and planar straight-line dominance drawings cannot always be constructed via a contract-draw-expand inductive approach. We also show several classes of st-planar graphs that always admit a planar straight-line dominance drawing. These include st-planar 3-trees in which every stacking operation introduces two edges incoming into the new vertex, st-planar graphs in which every vertex is adjacent to the sink, and st-planar graphs in which no face has the left boundary that is a single edge.

A drawing of a graph divides the plane into topologically connected regions, called faces (or cells ). The boundary of each face is formed by vertices, crossings, and edge portions. Given a positive integer , we say that is a -real face drawing of if the boundary of each face of contains at least vertices of . Graphs that admit a -real face drawing are -real face graphs ; they have been studied so far in terms of edge density and inclusion relationships with other notable classes of nonplanar graphs that can be drawn avoiding specific crossing configurations. In this paper, we investigate the complexity of recognizing -real face graphs, that is, the complexity of testing whether a given graph is -real face, for desired values of . We study both the general unconstrained scenario and the 2-layer scenario in which the graph is bipartite, the vertices of the two partition sets lie on two distinct horizontal layers, and the edges are drawn as straight-line segments. While we prove NP-completeness results for the unconstrained scenario, we describe efficient recognition algorithms for the 2-layer setting.

This paper studies planar drawings of graphs in which each vertex is represented as a point along a sequence of horizontal lines, called levels, and each edge is either a horizontal segment or a strictly $y$-monotone curve. A graph is $s$-span weakly leveled planar if it admits such a drawing where the edges have span at most $s$; the span of an edge is the number of levels it touches minus one. We investigate the problem of computing $s$-span weakly leveled planar drawings from both the computational and the combinatorial perspectives. We prove the problem to be para-NP-hard with respect to its natural parameter $s$ and investigate its complexity with respect to widely used structural parameters. We show the existence of a polynomial-size kernel with respect to vertex cover number and prove that the problem is FPT when parameterized by treedepth. We also present upper and lower bounds on the span for various graph classes. Notably, we show that cycle trees, a family of $2$-outerplanar graphs generalizing Halin graphs, are $Θ(\log n)$-span weakly leveled planar and $4$-span weakly leveled planar when $3$-connected. As a byproduct of these combinatorial results, we obtain improved bounds on the edge-length ratio of the graph families under consideration.

Abstract A map is a partition of the sphere into interior-disjoint regions homeomorphic to closed disks. Some regions are labeled as nations, while the remaining ones are labeled as holes. A map in which at mostknations touch at the same point is ak-map, while it is hole-free if it contains no holes. A graph is a map graph if there is a bijection between its vertices and the nations of a map, such that two nations touch if and only the corresponding vertices are connected by an edge. We present a fixed-parameter tractable algorithm for recognizing map graphs parameterized by treewidth. Its time complexity is linear in the size of the graph. It reports a certificate in the form of a so-called witness, if the input is a yes-instance. Our algorithmic framework is general enough to test, for anyk, if the input graph admits ak-map or a hole-free k-map.

In this work, we continue the study of the area required for convex straight-line grid drawings of 3-connected plane graphs, which has been intensively investigated in the last decades. Motivated by applications, such as graph editors, we additionally require the obtained drawings to have bounded edge-vertex resolution, that is, the closest distance between a vertex and any non-incident edge in the drawing is lower bounded by a constant that does not depend on the size of the graph. We present a drawing algorithm that takes as input a 3-connected plane graph with n vertices and f internal faces, and computes a convex straight-line drawing with edge-vertex resolution at least 12 on an integer grid of size (n−2+a)×(n−2+a), where a=min⁡{n−3,f}. Our result improves the previously best-known area bound of (3n−7)×(3n−7)/2 by Chrobak, Goodrich and Tamassia.

A RAC graph is one admitting a RAC drawing, that is, a polyline drawing in which each crossing occurs at a right angle. Originally motivated by psychological studies on readability of graph layouts, RAC graphs form one of the most prominent graph classes in beyond planarity. In this work, we study a subclass of RAC graphs, called axis-parallel RAC (or apRAC, for short), that restricts the crossings to pairs of axis-parallel edge-segments. apRAC drawings combine the readability of planar drawings with the clarity of (non-planar) orthogonal drawings. We consider these graphs both with and without bends. Our contribution is as follows: (i) We study inclusion relationships between apRAC and traditional RAC graphs. (ii) We establish bounds on the edge density of apRAC graphs. (iii) We show that every graph with maximum degree 8 is 2-bend apRAC and give a linear time drawing algorithm. Some of our results on apRAC graphs also improve the state of the art for general RAC graphs. We conclude our work with a list of open questions and a discussion of a natural generalization of the apRAC model.

Abstract We investigate the queue number of posets in terms of their width, that is, the maximum number of pairwise incomparable elements. A long-standing conjecture of Heath and Pemmaraju asserts that every poset of width w has queue number at most w. The conjecture has been confirmed for posets of width $$w=2$$ w = 2 via so-called lazy linear extension. We extend and thoroughly analyze lazy linear extensions for posets of width $$w > 2$$ w > 2 . Our analysis implies an upper bound of $$(w-1)^2 +1$$ ( w - 1 ) 2 + 1 on the queue number of width-w posets, which is tight for the strategy and yields an improvement over the previously best-known bound. Further, we provide an example of a poset that requires at least $$w+1$$ w + 1 queues in every linear extension, thereby disproving the conjecture for posets of width $$w > 2$$ w > 2 .

Abstract Bitonic st-orderings for st-planar graphs were introduced as a method to cope with several graph drawing problems. Notably, they have been used to obtain the best-known upper bound on the number of bends for upward planar polyline drawings with at most one bend per edge in polynomial area. For an st-planar graph that does not admit a bitonic st-ordering, one may split certain edges such that for the resulting graph such an ordering exists. Since each split is interpreted as a bend, one is usually interested in splitting as few edges as possible. While this optimization problem admits a linear-time algorithm in the fixed embedding setting, it remains open in the variable embedding setting. We close this gap in the literature by providing a linear-time algorithm that optimizes over all embeddings of the input st-planar graph. The best-known lower bound on the number of required splits of an st-planar graph with n vertices is $$n-3$$ n - 3 . However, it is possible to compute a bitonic st-ordering without any split for the st-planar graph obtained by reversing the orientation of all edges. In terms of upward planar polyline drawings in polynomial area, the former translates into $$n-3$$ n - 3 bends, while the latter into no bends. We show that this idea cannot always be exploited by describing an st-planar graph that needs at least $$n-5$$ n - 5 splits in both orientations. We provide analogous bounds for graphs with small degree. Finally, we further investigate the relationship between splits in bitonic st-orderings and bends in upward planar polyline drawings with polynomial area, by providing bounds on the number of bends in such drawings.

Abstract A k -queue layout is a special type of a linear layout, in which the linear order avoids $$(k+1)$$ ( k + 1 ) -rainbows, that is, $$k+1$$ k + 1 independent edges that pairwise form a nested pair. The optimization goal is to determine the queue number of a graph, which is defined as the minimum value of k for which a k -queue layout is feasible. Recently, Dujmović et al. [J. ACM, 67(4), 22:1–38, 2020] showed that the queue number of planar graphs is at most 49, thus settling in the positive a long-standing conjecture by Heath, Leighton and Rosenberg. To achieve this breakthrough result, their approach involves three different techniques: (1) an algorithm to obtain 2-queue layouts of outerplanar graphs, (2) an algorithm to obtain 5-queue layouts of planar 3-trees, and (3) a decomposition of a planar graph into so-called tripods. In this work, we push further each of these techniques to obtain the first non-trivial improvement of the upper bound on the queue number of planar graphs from 49 to $$42 $$ 42 .

The page-number of a directed acyclic graph (a DAG, for short) is the minimum k for which the DAG has a topological order and a k-coloring of its edges such that no two edges of the same color cross, i.e., have alternating endpoints along the topological order. In 1999, Heath and Pemmaraju conjectured that the recognition of DAGs with page-number 2 is NP-complete and proved that recognizing DAGs with page-number 6 is NP-complete (Heath and Pemmaraju (1999) [15]). Binucci et al. recently strengthened this result by proving that recognizing DAGs with page-number k is NP-complete, for every k≥3 (Binucci et al. (2019) [6]). In this paper, we finally resolve Heath and Pemmaraju's conjecture in the affirmative. In particular, our NP-completeness result holds even for st-planar graphs and planar posets.

Graph product structure theory expresses certain graphs as subgraphs of the strong product of much simpler graphs. In particular, an elegant formulation for the corresponding structural theorems involves the strong product of a path and of a bounded treewidth graph, and allows to lift combinatorial results for bounded treewidth graphs to graph classes for which the product structure holds, such as to planar graphs [Dujmović et al., J. ACM, 67(4), 22:1-38, 2020]. In this paper, we join the search for extensions of this powerful tool beyond planarity by considering the h-framed graphs, a graph class that includes 1-planar, optimal 2-planar, and k-map graphs (for appropriate values of h). We establish a graph product structure theorem for h-framed graphs stating that the graphs in this class are subgraphs of the strong product of a path, of a planar graph of treewidth at most 3, and of a clique of size 3⌊h2 ⌋ + ⌊h3 ⌋ - 1. This allows us to improve over the previous structural theorems for 1-planar and k-map graphs. Our results constitute significant progress over the previous bounds on the queue number, non-repetitive chromatic number, and p-centered chromatic number of these graph classes, e.g., we lower the currently best upper bound on the queue number of 1-planar graphs and k-map graphs from 115 to 82 and from ⌊332 (k + 3⌊k2 ⌋-3)⌋ to ⌊332 (3⌊k2 ⌋ + ⌊k3 ⌋ - 1)⌋, respectively. We also employ the product structure machinery to improve the current upper bounds on the twin-width of 1-planar graphs from O(1) to 80. All our structural results are constructive and yield efficient algorithms to obtain the corresponding decompositions.

Motivated by cognitive experiments providing evidence that large crossing-angles do not impair the readability of a graph drawing, RAC (Right Angle Crossing) drawings were introduced to address the problem of producing readable representations of non-planar graphs by supporting the optimal case in which all crossings form 90° angles. In this work, we make progress on the problem of finding RAC drawings of graphs of low degree. In this context, a long-standing open question asks whether all degree-3 graphs admit straight-line RAC drawings. This question has been positively answered for the Hamiltonian degree-3 graphs. We improve on this result by extending to the class of 3-edge-colorable degree-3 graphs. When each edge is allowed to have one bend, we prove that degree-4 graphs admit such RAC drawings, a result which was previously known only for degree-3 graphs. Finally, we show that 7-edge-colorable degree-7 graphs admit RAC drawings with two bends per edge. This improves over the previous result on degree-6 graphs.

Abstract We study universal sets of slopes for computing upward planar drawings of planar st-graphs. We first consider a subfamily of planar st-graphs, called bitonic st-graphs. We prove that every set $$\mathcal {S}$$ S of $$\varDelta $$ Δ slopes containing the horizontal slope is universal for 1-bend upward planar drawings of bitonic st-graphs with maximum vertex degree $$\varDelta $$ Δ , i.e., every such digraph admits a 1-bend upward planar drawing whose edge segments use only slopes in $$\mathcal {S}$$ S . This result is worst-case optimal in terms of number of slopes, and, for a suitable choice of $$\mathcal {S}$$ S , it gives rise to drawings with worst-case optimal angular resolution. We then prove that every such set $$\mathcal {S}$$ S can be used to construct 2-bend upward planar drawings of n-vertex planar st-graphs with at most $$4n-9$$ 4 n - 9 bends in total.

Abstract Set systems can be visualized in various ways. An important distinction between techniques is whether the elements have a spatial location that is to be used for the visualization; for example, the elements are cities on a map. Strictly adhering to such location may severely limit the visualization and force overlay, intersections and other forms of clutter. On the other hand, completely ignoring the spatial dimension omits information and may hide spatial patterns in the data. We study layouts for set systems (or hypergraphs) in which spatial locations are displaced onto concentric circles or a grid, to obtain schematic set visualizations. We investigate the tractability of the underlying algorithmic problems adopting different optimization criteria (e.g. crossings or bends) for the layout structure, also known as the support of the hypergraph. Furthermore, we describe a simulated‐annealing approach to heuristically optimize a combination of such criteria. Using this method in computational experiments, we explore the trade‐offs and dependencies between criteria for computing high‐quality schematic set visualizations.

Abstract The crossing resolution of a non-planar drawing of a graph is the value of the minimum angle formed by any pair of crossing edges. Recent experiments suggest that the larger the crossing resolution is, the easier it is to read and interpret a drawing of a graph. However, maximizing the crossing resolution turns out to be an NP-hard problem in general, and only heuristic algorithms are known that are mainly based on appropriately adjusting force-directed algorithms. In this paper, we propose a new heuristic algorithm for the crossing resolution maximization problem and we experimentally compare it against the known approaches from the literature. Our experimental evaluation indicates that the new heuristic produces drawings with better crossing resolution, but this comes at the cost of slightly higher edge-length ratio, especially when the input graph is large.

An embedding of a graph in a book, called book embedding, consists of a linear ordering of its vertices along the spine of the book and an assignment of its edges to the pages of the book, so that no two edges on the same page cross. The book thickness of a graph is the minimum number of pages over all its book embeddings. For planar graphs, a fundamental result is due to Yannakakis, who proposed an algorithm to compute embeddings of planar graphs in books with four pages. Our main contribution is a technique that generalizes this result to a much wider family of nonplanar graphs, which is characterized by a biconnected skeleton of crossing-free edges whose faces have bounded degree. Notably, this family includes all 1-planar and all optimal 2-planar graphs as subgraphs. We prove that this family of graphs has bounded book thickness, and as a corollary, we obtain the first constant upper bound for the book thickness of optimal 2-planar graphs.

Abstract A queue layout of a graph G consists of a linear order of the vertices of G and a partition of the edges of G into queues , so that no two independent edges of the same queue are nested. The queue number of graph G is defined as the minimum number of queues required by any queue layout of G . In this paper, we continue the study of the queue number of planar 3-trees, which form a well-studied subclass of planar graphs. Prior to this work, it was known that the queue number of planar 3-trees is at most seven. In this work, we improve this upper bound to five. We also show that there exist planar 3-trees whose queue number is at least four. Notably, this is the first example of a planar graph with queue number greater than three.

Beyond-planarity focuses on combinatorial properties of classes of non-planar graphs that allow for representations satisfying certain local geometric or topological constraints on their edge crossings. Beside the study of a specific graph class for its maximum edge density, another parameter that is often considered in the literature is the size of the largest complete or complete bipartite graph belonging to it. Overcoming the limitations of standard combinatorial arguments, we present a technique to systematically generate all non-isomorphic topological representations of complete and complete bipartite graphs, taking into account the constraints of the specific class. As a proof of concept, we apply our technique to various beyond-planarity classes and achieve new tight bounds for the aforementioned parameter.

A queue layout of a graph consists of a linear order of its vertices and a partition of its edges into queues, so that no two independent edges of the same queue are nested. The queue number of a graph is the minimum number of queues required by any of its queue layouts. A long-standing conjecture by Heath, Leighton and Rosenberg states that the queue number of planar graphs is bounded.This conjecture has been partially settled in the positive for several sub- families of planar graphs (most of which have bounded treewidth).

Abstract External labeling is frequently used for annotating features in graphical displays and visualizations, such as technical illustrations, anatomical drawings, or maps, with textual information. Such a labeling connects features within an illustration by thin leader lines with their labels, which are placed in the empty space surrounding the image. Over the last twenty years, a large body of literature in diverse areas of computer science has been published that investigates many different aspects, models, and algorithms for automatically placing external labels for a given set of features. This state‐of‐the‐art report introduces a first unified taxonomy for categorizing the different results in the literature and then presents a comprehensive survey of the state of the art, a sketch of the most relevant algorithmic techniques for external labeling algorithms, as well as a list of open research challenges in this multidisciplinary research field.

A queue layout of a graph consists of a linear order of its vertices and a partition of its edges into queues, so that no two independent edges of the same queue are nested. The queue number of a graph is the minimum number of queues required by any of its queue layouts. A long-standing conjecture by Heath, Leighton and Rosenberg [ SIAM J. Discrete Math., 5 (1992), pp. 398--412] states that the queue number of planar graphs is bounded. This conjecture has been partially settled in the positive for several subfamilies of planar graphs (most of which have bounded treewidth). In this paper, we make a further important step towards settling this conjecture. We prove that planar graphs of bounded degree (which may have unbounded treewidth) have bounded queue number. A notable implication of this result is that every planar graph of bounded degree admits a three-dimensional straight-line grid drawing in linear volume. Further implications are that every planar graph of bounded degree has bounded track number, and that every $k$-planar graph (i.e., every graph that can be drawn in the plane with at most $k$ crossings per edge) of bounded degree has bounded queue number.

We describe a set of Delta-1 slopes that are universal for 1-bend planar drawings of planar graphs of maximum degree Delta>=4; this establishes a new upper bound of Delta-1 on the 1-bend planar slope number. By universal we mean that every planar graph of degree Delta has a planar drawing with at most one bend per edge and such that the slopes of the segments forming the edges belong to the given set of slopes. This improves over previous results in two ways: Firstly, the best previously known upper bound for the 1-bend planar slope number was 3/2(Delta-1) (the known lower bound being 3/4(Delta-1)); secondly, all the known algorithms to construct 1-bend planar drawings with O(Delta) slopes use a different set of slopes for each graph and can have bad angular resolution, while our algorithm uses a universal set of slopes, which also guarantees that the minimum angle between any two edges incident to a vertex is pi/(Delta-1).

A graph is k-planar if it can be drawn in the plane such that no edge is crossed more than k times. While for k=1, optimal 1-planar graphs, i.e., those with n vertices and exactly 4n-8 edges, have been completely characterized, this has not been the case for k > 1. For k=2,3 and 4, upper bounds on the edge density have been developed for the case of simple graphs by Pach and Tóth, Pach et al. and Ackerman, which have been used to improve the well-known "Crossing Lemma". Recently, we proved that these bounds also apply to non-simple 2- and 3-planar graphs without homotopic parallel edges and self-loops. In this paper, we completely characterize optimal 2- and 3-planar graphs, i.e., those that achieve the aforementioned upper bounds. We prove that they have a remarkably simple regular structure, although they might be non-simple. The new characterization allows us to develop notable insights concerning new inclusion relationships with other graph classes.

Back in the eighties, Heath showed that every 3-planar graph is subhamiltonian and asked whether this result can be extended to a class of graphs of degree greater than three. In this paper we affirmatively answer this question for the class of 4-planar graphs. Our contribution consists of two algorithms: The first one is limited to triconnected graphs, but runs in linear time and uses existing methods for computing hamiltonian cycles in planar graphs. The second one, which solves the general case of the problem, is a quadratic-time algorithm based on the book embedding viewpoint of the problem.

A major factor affecting the readability of a graph drawing is its resolution.In the graph drawing literature, the resolution of a drawing is either measured based on the angles formed by consecutive edges incident to a common node (angular resolution) or by the angles formed at edge crossings (crossing resolution).In this paper, we evaluate both by introducing the notion of "total resolution", that is, the minimum of the angular and crossing resolution.To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time where the problem of maximizing the total resolution of a drawing is studied.The main contribution of the paper consists of drawings of asymptotically optimal total resolution for complete graphs (circular drawings) and for complete bipartite graphs (2-layered drawings).In addition, we present and experimentally evaluate a force-directed based algorithm that constructs drawings of large total resolution.

Boundary labeling is a relatively new labeling method. It can be useful in automating the production of technical drawings and medical maps, where it is common to explain certain parts of the drawing with text labels, arranged on its boundary so that other parts of the drawing are not obscured. In boundary labeling, we are given a rectangle R which encloses a set of n sites. Each site si is associated with an axis-parallel rectangular label li. The labels must be placed in distinct positions on the boundary of R and to be connected to their corresponding sites with polygonal lines, called leaders, so that the labels are pairwise disjoint and the leaders do not intersect each other. In this paper, we study a version of the boundary labeling problem where the sites can “float ” within a polygonal region. We present a polynomial time algorithm that produces a labeling of minimum total leader length for labels of uniform size placed in fixed positions on the boundary of R.