We introduce the abstract notion of a chain, which is a sequence of n points in the plane, ordered by x -coordinates, so that the edge between any two consecutive points is unavoidable as far as triangulations are concerned. A general theory of the structural properties of chains is developed, alongside a general understanding of their number of triangulations. We also describe an intriguing new and concrete configuration, which we call the Koch chain due to its similarities to the Koch curve. A specific construction based on Koch chains is then shown to have Ω (9.08 n ) triangulations. This is a significant improvement over the previous and long-standing lower bound of Ω (8.65 n ) for the maximum number of triangulations of planar point sets.

A set P = H cup {w} of n+1 points in the plane is called a wheel set if all points but w are extreme. We show that for the purpose of counting crossing-free geometric graphs on P, it suffices to know the so-called frequency vector of P. While there are roughly 2^n distinct order types that correspond to wheel sets, the number of frequency vectors is only about 2^{n/2}. We give simple formulas in terms of the frequency vector for the number of crossing-free spanning cycles, matchings, w-embracing triangles, and many more. Based on these formulas, the corresponding numbers of graphs can be computed efficiently. Also in higher dimensions, wheel sets turn out to be a suitable model to approach the problem of computing the simplicial depth of a point w in a set H, i.e., the number of simplices spanned by H that contain w. While the concept of frequency vectors does not generalize easily, we show how to apply similar methods in higher dimensions. The result is an O(n^{d-1}) time algorithm for computing the simplicial depth of a point w in a set H of n d-dimensional points, improving on the previously best bound of O(n^d log n). Configurations equivalent to wheel sets have already been used by Perles for counting the faces of high-dimensional polytopes with few vertices via the Gale dual. Based on that we can compute the number of facets of the convex hull of n=d+k points in general position in R^d in time O(n^max(omega,k-2)) where omega = 2.373, even though the asymptotic number of facets may be as large as n^k.

We show that every triangulation (maximal planar graph) on n\ge 6 vertices can be flipped into a Hamiltonian triangulation using a sequence of less than n/2 combinatorial edge flips. The previously best upper bound uses 4-connectivity as a means to establish Hamiltonicity. But in general about 3n/5 flips are necessary to reach a 4-connected triangulation. Our result improves the upper bound on the diameter of the flip graph of combinatorial triangulations on n vertices from 5.2n-33.6 to 5n-23. We also show that for every triangulation on n vertices there is a simultaneous flip of less than 2n/3 edges to a 4-connected triangulation. The bound on the number of edges is tight, up to an additive constant. As another application we show that every planar graph on n vertices admits an arc diagram with less than n/2 biarcs, that is, after subdividing less than n/2 (of potentially 3n-6) edges the resulting graph admits a 2-page book embedding.

We describe a framework for counting and enumerating various types of crossing-free geometric graphs on a planar point set. The framework generalizes ideas of Alvarez and Seidel, who used them to count triangulations in time O(2nn2) where n is the number of points. The main idea is to reduce the problem of counting geometric graphs to counting source-sink paths in a directed acyclic graph.