A conforming partition of a rectilinear n -gon P (possibly with holes) is a partition of P into rectangles without using Steiner points (i.e., all corners of all rectangles must lie on the boundary of P ). The stabbing number of such a partition is the maximum number of rectangles intersected by an axis-aligned segment lying in the interior of P . In this paper, we examine the problem of computing conforming partitions with low stabbing number. We show that computing a conforming partition with stabbing number at most 4 is NP -hard, which strengthens a previously known hardness result [Durocher & Mehrabi, Theor. Comput. Sci. 689: 157-168 (2017)] and eliminates the possibility for fixed-parameter-tractable algorithms parameterized by the stabbing number unless P = NP . In contrast, we give (i) an O ( n log ⁡ n ) -time algorithm to decide whether a conforming partition with stabbing number 2 exists, (ii) a fixed-parameter-tractable algorithm parameterized by both the stabbing number and treewidth of the pixel graph of the polygon, and (iii) a fixed-parameter-tractable algorithm parameterized by the stabbing number for polygons without holes in general position.

Abstract Let $G$ be a vertex-weighted connected graph of $n$ vertices and let $T$ be a spanning tree of $G$. We call $T$ a maximum weighted internal spanning tree of $G$ if the sum of the weights of the internal vertices of $T$ is the maximum over all spanning trees of $G$. The maximum weighted internal spanning tree (MaxwIST) problem asks to find such a spanning tree $T$ of $G$. The problem is NP-hard. We give an $O(dn)$ time approximation algorithm for $d$-regular graphs of $n=|V|$ vertices that computes a spanning tree with total weight of the internal vertices is at least $\frac{\beta _{d}}{\beta _{d} +d-2} - \epsilon $ of the total weight of all the vertices of the graph for any $\epsilon>0$, where $\beta _{d} = (d-1)H_{d-1}$, and $H_{d-1} = \sum _{i=1}^{d-1} i^{-1}$ is the $(d-1)$th harmonic number. For every $d \geq 3$ and $n_{0} \geq 1$, we show the construction of a $d$-regular graph of at least $n_{0}$ vertices, such that for any of its spanning trees, $\frac{w(I)}{w(V)}\le \frac{d}{d+1}$ holds. We give an $O(dn)$ time approximation algorithm for subdivisions of $d$-regular graphs, where the ratio of the internal weight of the spanning tree with the total vertex weight of the graph is at least $\frac{d-1}{2d-3} - \epsilon $ for $\epsilon>0$. We extend our study to $x$-subdivisions of Hamiltonian and hypoHamiltonian graphs, where each edge of the original Hamiltonian or hypoHamiltonian graph has been subdivided at least $x$ times. For those two graph classes, we show that there exists a spanning tree with internal vertex weight at least $1-\frac{2}{x-1}$ of the total vertex weight of the graph. Furthermore, we give $O(n)$ time algorithm for $x$-subdivisions of biconnected outerplanar graphs and $4$-connected planar graphs to achieve the above bound.

Abstract We explore the optimization of closed space‐filling curves under orientation objectives. By solidifying material along the closed curve, solid layers of 3D prints can be manufactured in a single continuous extrusion motion. The control over orientation enables the deposition to align with specific directions in different areas, or to produce a locally uniform distribution of orientations, patterning the solidified volume in a precisely controlled manner. Our optimization framework proceeds in two steps. First, we cast a combinatorial problem, optimizing Hamiltonian cycles within a specially constructed graph. We rely on a stochastic optimization process based on local operators that modify a cycle while preserving its Hamiltonian property. Second, we use the result to initialize a geometric optimizer that improves the smoothness and uniform coverage of the cycle while further optimizing for alignment and orientation objectives.