Efficiently Partitioning the Edges of a 1-Planar Graph into a Planar Graph and a Forest

TL;DR

This paper provides a clear, linear-time algorithm for partitioning 1-planar graphs into a planar graph and a forest, improving understanding and practical implementation of Ackerman's theoretical result.

Contribution

The paper re-proves Ackerman's partition result and introduces a linear-time algorithm using an edge-contraction data structure.

Findings

Partition can be found in linear time

Algorithm uses edge-contraction data structure

Generalizes Ackerman's result

Abstract

1-planar graphs are graphs that can be drawn in the plane such that any edge intersects with at most one other edge. Ackerman showed that the edges of a 1-planar graph can be partitioned into a planar graph and a forest, and claims that the proof leads to a linear time algorithm. However, it is not clear how one would obtain such an algorithm from his proof. In this paper, we first reprove Ackerman's result (in fact, we prove a slightly more general statement) and then show that the split can be found in linear time by using an edge-contraction data structure by Holm et al.