Ortho-polygon Visibility Representations of Embedded Graphs

TL;DR

This paper introduces polynomial time algorithms for testing and constructing ortho-polygon visibility representations of embedded graphs, analyzing how graph crossings and connectivity affect the existence and complexity of such representations.

Contribution

It provides algorithms for minimal vertex complexity OPVRs, explores the impact of crossings and connectivity, and presents experimental results on 1-plane graphs.

Findings

OPVR exists for 1-plane graphs with at most one crossing per edge

3-connected 1-plane graphs have constant vertex complexity OPVRs

2-connected 1-plane graphs can have linear vertex complexity in their OPVRs

Abstract

An ortho-polygon visibility representation of an $n$-vertex embedded graph $G$ (OPVR of $G$) is an embedding-preserving drawing of $G$ that maps every vertex to a distinct orthogonal polygon and each edge to a vertical or horizontal visibility between its end-vertices. The vertex complexity of an OPVR of $G$ is the minimum $k$ such that every polygon has at most $k$ reflex corners. We present polynomial time algorithms that test whether $G$ has an OPVR and, if so, compute one of minimum vertex complexity. We argue that the existence and the vertex complexity of an OPVR of $G$ are related to its number of crossings per edge and to its connectivity. More precisely, we prove that if $G$ has at most one crossing per edge (i.e., $G$ is a 1-plane graph), an OPVR of $G$ always exists while this may not be the case if two crossings per edge are allowed. Also, if $G$ is a 3-connected 1-plane graph, we can compute an OPVR of $G$ whose vertex complexity is bounded by a constant in $O(n)$ time. However, if $G$ is a 2-connected 1-plane graph, the vertex complexity of any OPVR of $G$ may be $\Omega(n)$. In contrast, we describe a family of 2-connected 1-plane graphs for which an embedding that guarantees constant vertex complexity can be computed in $O(n)$ time. Finally, we present the results of an experimental study on the vertex complexity of ortho-polygon visibility representations of 1-plane graphs.