Untangling Segments in the Plane

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unifying framework for analyzing the number of flip operations needed to untangle crossings in segments forming various graph structures in the plane, with bounds depending on geometric configurations.

Contribution

It develops a new framework for counting flips to untangle crossings in segments, applicable to tours, trees, and matchings, with bounds influenced by endpoint positions.

Findings

New bounds on flip operations for untangling segments

Framework applies to tours, trees, and matchings

Bounds depend on convex position of endpoints

Abstract

A set of n segments in the plane may form a Euclidean TSP tour, a tree, or a matching, among others. Optimal TSP tours as well as minimum spanning trees and perfect matchings have no crossing segments, but several heuristics and approximation algorithms may produce solutions with crossings. If two segments cross, then we can reduce the total length with the following flip operation. We remove a pair of crossing segments, and insert a pair of non-crossing segments, while keeping the same vertex degrees. In this paper, we consider the number of flips performed under different assumptions, using a new unifying framework that applies to tours, trees, matchings, and other types of (multi)graphs. Within this framework, we prove several new bounds that are sensitive to whether some endpoints are in convex position or not.