Oriented spanners were presented at ESA'23 as an extension of the well-researched geometric spanners: Given a set P of points in a metric space and an oriented graph G, the oriented dilation of two points p,q ∈ P is the length of the shortest closed walk in G containing p and q divided by the minimum perimeter triangle of p and q. G is called a t-spanner, if the maximum dilation over all pairs of points in P is at most t. This paper presents the first constructions of sparse oriented spanners for metric spaces beyond the Euclidean space. Given an orientation of the complete graph (i.e. a tournament) with dilation t on n points that satisfies an additional short-cycle property, we show how to extract a (t+ε)-spanner with 𝒪(k) edges in 𝒪(kn²+T(n)) time, for any metric space admitting a well-separated pair decomposition with k pairs computable in T(n) time. We supplement this with an improved construction of tournaments for metric point sets, obtaining dilation 5/3. This improves the previous bound of 2 and approaches the lower bound of 1.5. Combined, for n points in a metric space with constant doubling dimension d, this yields a (5/3 + ε)-spanner with (1/ε)^{𝒪(d)}n edges computable in (1/ε)^𝒪(d) n³ time using 𝒪(n²) space. This improves the dilation over the (2+ε)-spanner for Euclidean point sets presented at SoCG’25 while applying to more general metric spaces. Moreover, we generalize the known (2+ε)-spanner to doubling spaces. In particular, an oriented (2+ε)-spanner with 𝒪(ε^{-d} n) edges can be constructed in (1/ε)^𝒪(d) n log n time using 𝒪(ε^{-d} n) space. Since the oriented dilation can be dominated by one pair of points, we also consider the oriented average dilation, which is the sum over the oriented dilation of all pairs of points divided by the number of pairs. While oriented (1+ε)-spanners do not exist for every point set, we present an algorithm that computes a spanner with average dilation 1+ε for point sets in a metric space of constant doubling dimension d: More concretely, our algorithm computes an oriented spanner with average dilation at most 1 + 𝒪(1/s) + s^𝒪(d)/n with s^𝒪(d) n edges in s^𝒪(d) n log n time using s^𝒪(d) n space, where s is any sufficiently large number that may depend on n.

A hypergraph $H$ consists of a set $V$ of vertices and a set $E$ of hyperedges that are subsets of $V$. A $t$-tuple of $H$ is a subset of $t$ vertices of $V$. A $t$-tuple $k$-coloring of $H$ is a mapping of its $t$-tuples into $k$ colors. A coloring is called $(t,k,f)$-polychromatic if each hyperedge of $E$ that has at least $f$ vertices contains tuples of all the $k$ colors. Let $f_H(t,k)$ be the minimum $f$ such that $H$ has a $(t,k,f)$-polychromatic coloring. For a family of hypergraphs $\cal{H}$ let $f_{\cal{H}}(t,k)$ be the maximum $f_H(t,k)$ over all hypergraphs $H$ in $\cal{H}$. We present several bounds on $f_{\cal{H}}(t,k)$ for $t\ge 2$. - Let $\cal{H}$ be the family of hypergraphs $H$ that is obtained by taking any set $P$ of points in $\Re^2$, setting $V:=P$ and $E:=\{d\cap P\colon d\text{ is a disk in }\Re^2\}$. We prove that $f_\cal{H}(2,k)\le 3.7^k$, that is, the pairs of points (2-tuples) can be $k$-colored such that any disk containing at least $3.7^k$ points has pairs of all colors. - For the family $\mathcal{H}$ of shrinkable hypergraphs of VC-dimension at most $d$ we prove that $ f_\cal{H}(d{+}1,k) \leq c^k$ for some constant $c=c(d)$. We also prove that every hypergraph with $n$ vertices and with VC-dimension at most $d$ has a $(d{+}1)$-tuple $T$ of depth at least $\frac{n}{c}$, i.e., any hyperedge that contains $T$ also contains $\frac{n}{c}$ other vertices. - For the relationship between $t$-tuple coloring and vertex coloring in any hypergraph $H$ we establish the inequality $\frac{1}{e}\cdot tk^{\frac{1}{t}}\le f_H(t,k)\le f_H(1,tk^{\frac{1}{t}})$. For the special case of $k=2$, we prove that $t+1\le f_H(t,2)\le\max\{f_H(1,2), t+1\}$; this improves upon the previous best known upper bound. - We generalize some of our results to higher dimensions, other shapes, pseudo-disks, and also study the relationship between tuple coloring and epsilon nets.

We introduce the contiguous art gallery problem which is to guard the boundary of a simple polygon with a minimum number of guards such that each guard covers exactly one contiguous portion of the boundary. Art gallery problems are often NP-hard. In particular, it is NP-hard to minimize the number of guards to see the boundary of a simple polygon, without the contiguity constraint. This paper is a merge of three concurrent works [Ahmad Biniaz et al., 2024; Magnus Christian Ring Merrild et al., 2024; Eliot W. Robson et al., 2024] each showing that (surprisingly) the contiguous art gallery problem is solvable in polynomial time. The common idea of all three approaches is developing a greedy function that maps a point on the boundary to the furthest point on the boundary so that the contiguous interval along the boundary between them could be guarded by one guard. Repeatedly applying this function immediately leads to an OPT+1 approximation. By studying this greedy algorithm, we present three different approaches that achieve an optimal solution. The first and second approach apply this greedy algorithm from different points on the boundary that could be found in advance or on the fly while traversing along the boundary (respectively). The third approach represents this function as a piecewise linear rational function, which can be reduced to an abstract arc cover problem involving infinite families of arcs. We identify other problems that can be represented by similar functions, and solve them via the third approach. From the combinatorial point of view, we show that any n-vertex polygon can be guarded by at most ⌊(n-2)/2⌋ guards. This bound is tight because there are polygons that require this many guards.

A covering path for a finite set P of points in the plane is a polygonal path such that every point of P lies on a segment of the path. The vertices of the path need not be at points of P. A covering path is plane if its segments do not cross each other. Let π(n) be the minimum number such that every set of n points in the plane admits a plane covering path with at most π(n) segments. We prove that π(n) ≤ ⌈6n/7⌉. This improves the previous best-known upper bound of ⌈21n/22⌉, due to Biniaz (SoCG 2023). Our proof is constructive and yields a simple O(n log n)-time algorithm for computing a plane covering path.

Let S be a set of n points in ℝ^d, where d ≥ 2 is a constant, and let H₁,H₂,…,H_{m+1} be a sequence of vertical hyperplanes that are sorted by their first coordinates, such that exactly n/m points of S are between any two successive hyperplanes. Let |A(S,m)| be the number of different closest pairs in the {(m+1) choose 2} vertical slabs that are bounded by H_i and H_j, over all 1 ≤ i < j ≤ m+1. We prove tight bounds for the largest possible value of |A(S,m)|, over all point sets of size n, and for all values of 1 ≤ m ≤ n. As a result of these bounds, we obtain, for any constant ε > 0, a data structure of size O(n), such that for any vertical query slab Q, the closest pair in the set Q ∩ S can be reported in O(n^{1/2+ε}) time. Prior to this work, no linear space data structure with sublinear query time was known.

For a set of red and blue points in the plane, a Minimum Bichromatic Spanning Tree (MinBST) is a shortest spanning tree of the points such that every edge has a red and a blue endpoint. A MinBST can be computed in \(O(n\log n)\) time where \( n \) is the number of points. In contrast to the standard Euclidean MST, which is always plane (noncrossing), a MinBST may have edges that cross each other. However, we prove that a MinBST is quasi-plane, that is, it does not contain three pairwise crossing edges, and we determine the maximum number of crossings. Moreover, we study the problem of finding a Minimum Plane Bichromatic Spanning Tree (MinPBST) which is a shortest bichromatic spanning tree with pairwise noncrossing edges. This problem is known to be NP-hard. The previous best approximation algorithm, due to Borgelt et al., has a ratio of \(O(\sqrt{n})\) . It is also known that the optimum solution can be computed in polynomial time in some special cases, for instance, when the points are in convex position, collinear, semi-collinear, or when one color class has constant size. We present an \(O(\log n)\) -factor approximation algorithm for the general case.

We confirm the following conjecture of Fekete and Woeginger from 1997: for any sufficiently large even number n, every set of n points in the plane can be connected by a spanning tour (Hamiltonian cycle) consisting of straight-line edges such that the angle between any two consecutive edges is at most $$\pi /2$$ . Our proof is constructive and suggests a simple $$O(n\log n)$$ -time algorithm for finding such a tour. The previous best-known upper bound on the angle is $$2\pi /3$$ , and it is due to Dumitrescu et al. (Electron. J. Comb. 19(2), # P31 (2012)).

A covering path for a planar point set is a path drawn in the plane with straight-line edges such that every point lies at a vertex or on an edge of the path. A covering tree is defined analogously. Let $π(n)$ be the minimum number such that every set of $n$ points in the plane can be covered by a noncrossing path with at most $π(n)$ edges. Let $τ(n)$ be the analogous number for noncrossing covering trees. Dumitrescu, Gerbner, Keszegh, and Tóth (Discrete & Computational Geometry, 2014) established the following inequalities: \[\frac{5n}{9} - O(1) < π(n) < \left(1-\frac{1}{601080391}\right)n, \quad\text{and} \quad\frac{9n}{17} - O(1) < τ(n)\leqslant \left\lfloor\frac{5n}{6}\right\rfloor.\] We report the following improved upper bounds: \[π(n)\leqslant \left(1-\frac{1}{22}\right)n, \quad\text{and}\quad τ(n)\leqslant \left\lceil\frac{4n}{5}\right\rceil.\] In the same context we study rainbow polygons. For a set of colored points in the plane, a perfect rainbow polygon is a simple polygon that contains exactly one point of each color in its interior or on its boundary. Let $ρ(k)$ be the minimum number such that every $k$-colored point set in the plane admits a perfect rainbow polygon of size $ρ(k)$. Flores-Peñaloza, Kano, Martínez-Sandoval, Orden, Tejel, Tóth, Urrutia, and Vogtenhuber (Discrete Mathematics, 2021) proved that $20k/19 - O(1) <ρ(k) < 10k/7 + O(1).$ We report the improved upper bound $ρ(k)< 7k/5 + O(1)$. To obtain the improved bounds we present simple $O(n\log n)$-time algorithms that achieve paths, trees, and polygons with our desired number of edges.

Inspired by the seminal works of Khuller et al. (STOC 1994) and Chan (SoCG 2003) we study the bottleneck version of the Euclidean bounded-degree spanning tree problem. A bottleneck spanning tree is a spanning tree whose largest edge-length is minimum, and a bottleneck degree-K spanning tree is a degree-K spanning tree whose largest edge-length is minimum. Let βκ be the supremum ratio of the largest edge-length of the bottleneck degree-K spanning tree to the largest edge-length of the bottleneck spanning tree, over all finite point sets in the Euclidean plane. It is known that β5= 1, and it is easy to verify that , and β4 > 1.175. It is implied by the Hamiltonicity of the cube of the bottleneck spanning tree that β2 ≪ 3. The degree-3 spanning tree algorithm of Ravi et al. (STOC 1993) implies that β3 ≪ 2. Andersen and Ras (Networks, 68(4):302–314, 2016) showed that . We present the following improved bounds: , and . As a result, we obtain better approximation algorithms for Euclidean bottleneck degree-3 and degree-4 spanning trees. As parts of our proofs of these bounds we present some structural properties of the Euclidean minimum spanning tree which are of independent interest.

Battle, Harary, and Kodama (1962) and independently Tutte (1963) proved that the complete graph with nine vertices is not biplanar. Aiming towards simplicity and brevity, in this note we provide a short proof of this claim.

A rollercoaster is a sequence of real numbers for which every maximal contiguous subsequence---increasing or decreasing---has length at least three. By translating this sequence to a set of points in the plane, a rollercoaster can be defined as an $x$-monotone polygonal path for which every maximal subpath, with positive- or negative-slope edges, has at least three vertices. Given a sequence of distinct real numbers, the rollercoaster problem asks for a maximum-length (not necessarily contiguous) subsequence that is a rollercoaster. It was conjectured that every sequence of $n$ distinct real numbers contains a rollercoaster of length at least $\lceil n/2\rceil$ for $n>7$, while the best known lower bound is $\Omega(n/\log n)$. In this paper we prove this conjecture. Our proof is constructive and implies a linear-time algorithm for computing a rollercoaster of this length. Extending the $O(n\log n)$-time algorithm for computing a longest increasing subsequence, we show how to compute a maximum-length rollercoaster within the same time bound. A maximum-length rollercoaster in a permutation of $\{1,\dots,n\}$ can be computed in $O(n\log\log n)$ time. The search for rollercoasters was motivated by the orthogeodesic point-set embedding of caterpillars. A caterpillar is a tree such that deleting the leaves gives a path, called the spine. A top-view caterpillar is an embedded caterpillar where every vertex has degree either 4 or 1 and such that the two leaves adjacent to each spine vertex lie on opposite sides of the spine. As an application of our result on rollercoasters, we are able to find a planar drawing of every $n$-vertex top-view caterpillar on every set of $\frac{25}{3}(n+4)$ points in the plane, such that each edge is an orthogonal path with one bend. This improves the previous best known upper bound on the number of required points, which is $O(n\log n)$. We also show that such a drawing can be obtained in linear time when the points are given in sorted order.

A rollercoaster is a sequence of real numbers for which every maximal contiguous subsequence, that is increasing or decreasing, has length at least three. By translating this sequence to a set of points in the plane, a rollercoaster can be defined as a polygonal path for which every maximal sub-path, with positive- or negative-slope edges, has at least three points. Given a sequence of distinct real numbers, the rollercoaster problem asks for a maximum-length subsequence that is a rollercoaster. It was conjectured that every sequence of $n$ distinct real numbers contains a rollercoaster of length at least $\lceil n/2\rceil$ for $n>7$, while the best known lower bound is $Ω(n/\log n)$. In this paper we prove this conjecture. Our proof is constructive and implies a linear-time algorithm for computing a rollercoaster of this length. Extending the $O(n\log n)$-time algorithm for computing a longest increasing subsequence, we show how to compute a maximum-length rollercoaster within the same time bound. A maximum-length rollercoaster in a permutation of $\{1,\dots,n\}$ can be computed in $O(n \log \log n)$ time. The search for rollercoasters was motivated by orthogeodesic point-set embedding of caterpillars. A caterpillar is a tree such that deleting the leaves gives a path, called the spine. A top-view caterpillar is one of degree 4 such that the two leaves adjacent to each vertex lie on opposite sides of the spine. As an application of our result on rollercoasters, we are able to find a planar drawing of every $n$-node top-view caterpillar on every set of $\frac{25}{3}n$ points in the plane, such that each edge is an orthogonal path with one bend. This improves the previous best known upper bound on the number of required points, which is $O(n \log n)$. We also show that such a drawing can be obtained in linear time, provided that the points are given in sorted order.

Let S be a finite set of points in the plane that are in convex position. We present an algorithm that constructs a plane frac{3+4 pi}{3}-spanner of S whose vertex degree is at most 3. Let Lambda be the vertex set of a finite non-uniform rectangular lattice in the plane. We present an algorithm that constructs a plane 3 sqrt{2}-spanner for Lambda whose vertex degree is at most 3. For points that are in the plane and in general position, we show how to compute plane degree-3 spanners with a linear number of Steiner points.