We study the 1-planar, quasi-planar, and fan-planar crossing number in comparison to the (unrestricted) crossing number of graphs. We prove that there are $n$-vertex 1-planar (quasi-planar, fan-planar) graphs such that any 1-planar (quasi-planar, fan-planar) drawing has $Ω(n)$ crossings, while $O(1)$ crossings suffice in a crossing-minimal drawing without restrictions on local edge crossing patterns.
A graph is \emph{fan-crossing free} if it has a drawing in the plane so that each edge is crossed by independent edges, that is the crossing edges have distinct vertices. On the other hand, it is \emph{fan-crossing} if the crossing edges have a common vertex, that is they form a fan. Both are prominent examples for beyond-planar graphs. Further well-known beyond-planar classes are the $k$-planar, $k$-gap-planar, quasi-planar, and right angle crossing graphs. We use the subdivision, node-to-circle expansion and path-addition operations to distinguish all these graph classes. In particular, we s…
We study the following classes of beyond-planar graphs: 1-planar, IC-planar, and NIC-planar graphs. These are the graphs that admit a 1-planar, IC-planar, and NIC-planar drawing, respectively. A drawing of a graph is 1-planar if every edge is crossed at most once. A 1-planar drawing is IC-planar if no two pairs of crossing edges share a vertex. A 1-planar drawing is NIC-planar if no two pairs of crossing edges share two vertices. We study the relations of these beyond-planar graph classes (beyond-planar graphs is a collective term for the primary attempts to generalize the planar graphs) to ri…
In a drawing of a clustered graph vertices and edges are drawn as points and curves, respectively, while clusters are represented by simple closed regions. A drawing of a clustered graph is c-planar if it has no edge-edge, edge-region, or region-region crossings. Determining the complexity of testing whether a clustered graph admits a c-planar drawing is a long-standing open problem in the Graph Drawing research area. An obvious necessary condition for c-planarity is the planarity of the graph underlying the clustered graph. However, such a condition is not sufficient and the consequences on t…
Beyond-planarity focuses on the study of geometric and topological graphs that are in some sense nearly-planar. Here, planarity is relaxed by allowing edge crossings, but only with respect to some local forbidden crossing configurations. Early research dates back to the 1960s (e.g., Avital and Hanani 1966) for extremal problems on geometric graphs, but is also related to graph drawing problems where visual clutter by edge crossings should be minimized (e.g., Huang et al. 2008) that could negatively affect the readability of the drawing. Different types of forbidden crossing configurations give…
Graph drawing beyond planarity focuses on drawings of high visual quality for non-planar graphs which are characterized by certain forbidden edge configurations. A natural criterion for the quality of a drawing is the number of edge crossings. The question then arises whether beyond-planar drawings have a significantly larger crossing number than unrestricted drawings. Chimani et al. [GD'19] gave bounds for the ratio between the crossing number of three classes of beyond-planar graphs and the unrestricted crossing number. In this paper we extend their results to the main currently known classe…
The $2$-layer drawing model is a well-established paradigm to visualize bipartite graphs. Several beyond-planar graph classes have been studied under this model. Surprisingly, however, the fundamental class of $k$-planar graphs has been considered only for $k=1$ in this context. We provide several contributions that address this gap in the literature. First, we show tight density bounds for the classes of $2$-layer $k$-planar graphs with $k\in\{2,3,4,5\}$. Based on these results, we provide a Crossing Lemma for $2$-layer $k$-planar graphs, which then implies a general density bound for $2$-lay…
We prove that if an $n$-vertex graph $G$ can be drawn in the plane such that each pair of crossing edges is independent and there is a crossing-free edge that connects their endpoints, then $G$ has $O(n)$ edges. Graphs that admit such drawings are related to quasi-planar graphs and to maximal $1$-planar and fan-planar graphs.
The biplanar crossing number of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of crossings over all possible drawings of the edges of $G$ in two disjoint planes. We present new bounds on the biplanar crossing number of complete graphs and complete bipartite graphs. In particular, we prove that the biplanar crossing number of complete bipartite graphs can be approximated to within a factor of $3$, improving over the best previously known approximation factor of $4.03$. For complete graphs, we provide a new approximation factor of $3.17$, improving over the best previous factor of $4.34$. We provide similar…
A graph is near-planar if it can be obtained from a planar graph by adding an edge. We show the surprising fact that it is NP-hard to compute the crossing number of near-planar graphs. A graph is 1-planar if it has a drawing where every edge is crossed by at most one other edge. We show that it is NP-hard to decide whether a given near-planar graph is 1-planar. The main idea in both reductions is to consider the problem of simultaneously drawing two planar graphs inside a disk, with some of its vertices fixed at the boundary of the disk. This leads to the concept of anchored embedding, which i…
A $k$-crossing family in a point set $S$ in general position is a set of $k$ segments spanned by points of $S$ such that all $k$ segments mutually cross. In this short note we present two statements on crossing families which are based on sets of small cardinality: (1) Any set of at least 15 points contains a crossing family of size 4. (2) There are sets of $n$ points which do not contain a crossing family of size larger than $8\lceil \frac{n}{41} \rceil$. Both results improve the previously best known bounds.
Given a graph $G$ and a subset $F \subseteq E(G)$ of its edges, is there a drawing of $G$ in which all edges of $F$ are free of crossings? We show that this question can be solved in polynomial time using a Hanani-Tutte style approach. If we require the drawing of $G$ to be straight-line, and allow at most one crossing along each edge in $F$, the problem turns out to be as hard as the existential theory of the real numbers.
Graph Drawing Beyond Planarity is a rapidly growing research area that classifies and studies geometric representations of non-planar graphs in terms of forbidden crossing configurations. Aim of this survey is to describe the main research directions in this area, the most prominent known results, and some of the most challenging open problems.
Given an n-vertex graph G, a drawing of G in the plane is a mapping of its vertices into points of the plane, and its edges into continuous curves, connecting the images of their endpoints. A crossing in such a drawing is a point where two such curves intersect. In the Minimum Crossing Number problem, the goal is to find a drawing of G with minimum number of crossings. The value of the optimal solution, denoted by OPT, is called the graph's crossing number. This is a very basic problem in topological graph theory, that has received a significant amount of attention, but is still poorly underst…
Given two planar graphs that are defined on the same set of vertices, a RAC simultaneous drawing is one in which each graph is drawn planar, there are no edge overlaps and the crossings between the two graphs form right angles. The geometric version restricts the problem to straight-line drawings. It is known, however, that there exists a wheel and a matching which do not admit a geometric RAC simultaneous drawing. In order to enlarge the class of graphs that admit RAC simultaneous drawings, we allow bends in the resulting drawings. We prove that two planar graphs always admit a RAC simultaneo…
We initiate the study of the following problem: Given a non-planar graph G and a planar subgraph S of G, does there exist a straight-line drawing Γ of G in the plane such that the edges of S are not crossed in Γ by any edge of G? We give positive and negative results for different kinds of connected spanning subgraphs S of G. Moreover, in order to enlarge the subset of instances that admit a solution, we consider the possibility of bending the edges of G not in S; in this setting we discuss different trade-offs between the number of bends and the required drawing area.
We introduce the family of $k$-gap-planar graphs for $k \geq 0$, i.e., graphs that have a drawing in which each crossing is assigned to one of the two involved edges and each edge is assigned at most $k$ of its crossings. This definition is motivated by applications in edge casing, as a $k$-gap-planar graph can be drawn crossing-free after introducing at most $k$ local gaps per edge. We present results on the maximum density of $k$-gap-planar graphs, their relationship to other classes of beyond-planar graphs, characterization of $k$-gap-planar complete graphs, and the computational complexity…
The \emph{segment number} of a planar graph is the smallest number of line segments whose union represents a crossing-free straight-line drawing of the given graph in the plane. The segment number is a measure for the visual complexity of a drawing; it has been studied extensively. In this paper, we study three variants of the segment number: for planar graphs, we consider crossing-free polyline drawings in 2D; for arbitrary graphs, we consider crossing-free straight-line drawings in 3D and straight-line drawings with crossings in 2D. We first construct an infinite family of planar graphs wher…
For a class $\mathcal{D}$ of drawings of loopless (multi-)graphs in the plane, a drawing $D \in \mathcal{D}$ is \emph{saturated} when the addition of any edge to $D$ results in $D' \notin \mathcal{D}$ - this is analogous to saturated graphs in a graph class as introduced by Turán (1941) and Erdős, Hajnal, and Moon (1964). We focus on $k$-planar drawings, that is, graphs drawn in the plane where each edge is crossed at most $k$ times, and the classes $\mathcal{D}$ of all $k$-planar drawings obeying a number of restrictions, such as having no crossing incident edges, no pair of edges crossing mo…
We provide linear-time algorithms for geometric graphs with sublinearly many crossings. That is, we provide algorithms running in O(n) time on connected geometric graphs having n vertices and k crossings, where k is smaller than n by an iterated logarithmic factor. Specific problems we study include Voronoi diagrams and single-source shortest paths. Our algorithms all run in linear time in the standard comparison-based computational model; hence, we make no assumptions about the distribution or bit complexities of edge weights, nor do we utilize unusual bit-level operations on memory words. In…
In this paper, we introduce a new approach for drawing diagrams that have applications in software visualization. Our approach is to use a technique we call confluent drawing for visualizing non-planar diagrams in a planar way. This approach allows us to draw, in a crossing-free manner, graphs--such as software interaction diagrams--that would normally have many crossings. The main idea of this approach is quite simple: we allow groups of edges to be merged together and drawn as "tracks" (similar to train tracks). Producing such confluent diagrams automatically from a graph with many crossings…
Inspired by the increasingly popular research on extending partial graph drawings, we propose a new perspective on the traditional and arguably most important geometric graph parameter, the crossing number. Specifically, we define the partially predrawn crossing number to be the smallest number of crossings in any drawing of a graph, part of which is prescribed on the input (not counting the prescribed crossings). Our main result - an FPT-algorithm to compute the partially predrawn crossing number - combines advanced ideas from research on the classical crossing number and so called partial pl…
We consider the problem of untangling a given (non-planar) straight-line circular drawing $δ_G$ of an outerplanar graph $G=(V, E)$ into a planar straight-line circular drawing by shifting a minimum number of vertices to a new position on the circle. For an outerplanar graph $G$, it is clear that such a crossing-free circular drawing always exists and we define the circular shifting number shift$(δ_G)$ as the minimum number of vertices that are required to be shifted in order to resolve all crossings of $δ_G$. We show that the problem Circular Untangling, asking whether shift$(δ_G) \le K$ for a…
A topological drawing of a graph is fan-planar if for each edge $e$ the edges crossing $e$ form a star and no endpoint of $e$ is enclosed by $e$ and its crossing edges. A fan-planar graph is a graph admitting such a drawing. Equivalently, this can be formulated by three forbidden patterns, one of which is the configuration where $e$ is crossed by two independent edges and the other two where $e$ is crossed by two incident edges in a way that encloses some endpoint of $e$. A topological drawing is simple if any two edges have at most one point in common. Fan-planar graphs are a new member in th…
The C-Planarity problem asks for a drawing of a $\textit{clustered graph}$, i.e., a graph whose vertices belong to properly nested clusters, in which each cluster is represented by a simple closed region with no edge-edge crossings, no region-region crossings, and no unnecessary edge-region crossings. We study C-Planarity for $\textit{embedded flat clustered graphs}$, graphs with a fixed combinatorial embedding whose clusters partition the vertex set. Our main result is a subexponential-time algorithm to test C-Planarity for these graphs when their face size is bounded. Furthermore, we conside…
We establish a one-to-one correspondence between 1-planar graphs and general and hole-free 4-map graphs and show that 1-planar graphs can be recognized in polynomial time if they are crossing-augmented, fully triangulated, and maximal 1-planar, respectively, with a polynomial of degree 120, 3, and 5, respectively.
We show that the 1-planar slope number of 3-connected cubic 1-planar graphs is at most 4 when edges are drawn as polygonal curves with at most 1 bend each. This bound is obtained by drawings whose vertex and crossing resolution is at least $π/4$. On the other hand, if the embedding is fixed, then there is a 3-connected cubic 1-planar graph that needs 3 slopes when drawn with at most 1 bend per edge. We also show that 2 slopes always suffice for 1-planar drawings of subcubic 1-planar graphs with at most 2 bends per edge. This bound is obtained with vertex resolution $π/2$ and the drawing is RAC…
A drawing of a graph is fan-planar if the edges intersecting a common edge $a$ share a vertex $A$ on the same side of $a$. More precisely, orienting $e$ arbitrarily and the other edges towards $A$ results in a consistent orientation of the crossings. So far, fan-planar drawings have only been considered in the context of simple drawings, where any two edges share at most one point, including endpoints. We show that every non-simple fan-planar drawing can be redrawn as a simple fan-planar drawing of the same graph while not introducing additional crossings. Combined with previous results on fan…
Graph drawing addresses the problem of finding a layout of a graph that satisfies given aesthetic and understandability objectives. The most important objective in graph drawing is minimization of the number of crossings in the drawing, as the aesthetics and readability of graph drawings depend on the number of edge crossings. VLSI layouts with fewer crossings are more easily realizable and consequently cheaper. A straight-line drawing of a planar graph G of n vertices is a drawing of G such that each edge is drawn as a straight-line segment without edge crossings. However, a problem with curr…
A simultaneous embedding with fixed edges (SEFE) of two planar graphs $R$ and $B$ is a pair of plane drawings of $R$ and $B$ that coincide when restricted to the common vertices and edges of $R$ and $B$. We show that whenever $R$ and $B$ admit a SEFE, they also admit a SEFE in which every edge is a polygonal curve with few bends and every pair of edges has few crossings. Specifically: (1) if $R$ and $B$ are trees then one bend per edge and four crossings per edge pair suffice (and one bend per edge is sometimes necessary), (2) if $R$ is a planar graph and $B$ is a tree then six bends per edge …
Graph Crossing Number is a fundamental problem with various applications. In this problem, the goal is to draw an input graph $G$ in the plane so as to minimize the number of crossings between the images of its edges. Despite extensive work, non-trivial approximation algorithms are only known for bounded-degree graphs. Even for this special case, the best current algorithm achieves a $\tilde O(\sqrt n)$-approximation, while the best current negative result is APX-hardness. All current approximation algorithms for the problem build on the same paradigm: compute a set $E'$ of edges (called a \em…
We introduce and study the 1-planar packing problem: Given $k$ graphs with $n$ vertices $G_1, \dots, G_k$, find a 1-planar graph that contains the given graphs as edge-disjoint spanning subgraphs. We mainly focus on the case when each $G_i$ is a tree and $k=3$. We prove that a triple consisting of three caterpillars or of two caterpillars and a path may not admit a 1-planar packing, while two paths and a special type of caterpillar always have one. We then study 1-planar packings with few crossings and prove that three paths (resp. cycles) admit a 1-planar packing with at most seven (resp. fou…
In a recent article (Auer et al, Algorithmica 2016) it was claimed that every outer-1-planar graph has a planar visibility representation of area $O(n\log n)$. In this paper, we show that this is wrong: There are outer-1-planar graphs that require $Ω(n^2)$ area in any planar drawing. Then wegive a construction (using crossings, but preserving a given outer-1-planar embedding) that results in an orthogonal box-drawing with O(n log n) area and at most two bends per edge.
A simple topological graph is $k$-quasiplanar ($k\geq 2$) if it contains no $k$ pairwise crossing edges, and $k$-planar if no edge is crossed more than $k$ times. In this paper, we explore the relationship between $k$-planarity and $k$-quasiplanarity to show that, for $k \geq 2$, every $k$-planar simple topological graph can be transformed into a $(k+1)$-quasiplanar simple topological graph.
We study crossing-free grid morphs for planar tree drawings using 3D. A morph consists of morphing steps, where vertices move simultaneously along straight-line trajectories at constant speeds. A crossing-free morph is known between two drawings of an $n$-vertex planar graph $G$ with $\mathcal{O}(n)$ morphing steps and using the third dimension it can be reduced to $\mathcal{O}(\log n)$ for an $n$-vertex tree [Arseneva et al.\ 2019]. However, these morphs do not bound one practical parameter, the resolution. Can the number of steps be reduced substantially by using the third dimension while ke…
A graph is $2$-planar if it has local crossing number two, that is, it can be drawn in the plane such that every edge has at most two crossings. A graph is maximal $2$-planar if no edge can be added such that the resulting graph remains $2$-planar. A $2$-planar graph on $n$ vertices has at most $5n-10$ edges, and some (maximal) $2$-planar graphs -- referred to as optimal $2$-planar -- achieve this bound. However, in strong contrast to maximal planar graphs, a maximal $2$-planar graph may have fewer than the maximum possible number of edges. In this paper, we determine the minimum edge density …
A graph is called a strong (resp. weak) bar 1-visibility graph if its vertices can be represented as horizontal segments (bars) in the plane so that its edges are all (resp. a subset of) the pairs of vertices whose bars have a $ε$-thick vertical line connecting them that intersects at most one other bar. We explore the relation among weak (resp. strong) bar 1-visibility graphs and other nearly planar graph classes. In particular, we study their relation to 1-planar graphs, which have a drawing with at most one crossing per edge; quasi-planar graphs, which have a drawing with no three mutually …
Let $G$ be a simple topological graph and let $Γ$ be a polyline drawing of $G$. We say that $Γ$ \emph{partially preserves the topology} of $G$ if it has the same external boundary, the same rotation system, and the same set of crossings as $G$. Drawing $Γ$ fully preserves the topology of $G$ if the planarization of $G$ and the planarization of $Γ$ have the same planar embedding. We show that if the set of crossing-free edges of $G$ forms a connected spanning subgraph, then $G$ admits a polyline drawing that partially preserves its topology and that has curve complexity at most three (i.e., at …
This paper considers 1-string representations of planar graphs that are order-preserving in the sense that the order of crossings along the curve representing vertex $v$ is the same as the order of edges in the clockwise order around $v$ in the planar embedding. We show that this does not exist for all planar graphs (not even for all planar 3-trees), but show existence for some subclasses of planar partial 3-trees. In particular, for outer-planar graphs it can be order-preserving and outer-string in the sense that all ends of strings are on the outside of the representation.
$t$-spanners are used to approximate the pairwise distances between a set of points in a metric space. They have only a few edges compared to the total number of pairs and they provide a $t$-approximation on the distance of any two arbitrary points. There are many ways to construct such graphs and one of the most efficient ones, in terms of weight and the number of edges of the resulting graph, is the greedy spanner. In this paper, we study the edge crossings of the greedy spanner for points in the Euclidean plane. We prove a constant upper bound for the number of intersections with larger edg…
A graph is $k$-planar $(k \geq 1)$ if it can be drawn in the plane such that no edge is crossed more than $k$ times. A graph is $k$-quasi planar $(k \geq 2)$ if it can be drawn in the plane with no $k$ pairwise crossing edges. The families of $k$-planar and $k$-quasi planar graphs have been widely studied in the literature, and several bounds have been proven on their edge density. Nonetheless, only trivial results are known about the relationship between these two graph families. In this paper we prove that, for $k \geq 3$, every $k$-planar graph is $(k+1)$-quasi planar.
Algorithmic extension problems of partial graph representations such as planar graph drawings or geometric intersection representations are of growing interest in topological graph theory and graph drawing. In such an extension problem, we are given a tuple $(G,H,\mathcal{H})$ consisting of a graph $G$, a connected subgraph $H$ of $G$ and a drawing $\mathcal{H}$ of $H$, and the task is to extend $\mathcal{H}$ into a drawing of $G$ while maintaining some desired property of the drawing, such as planarity. In this paper we study the problem of extending partial 1-planar drawings, which are drawi…
In this paper we settle the computational complexity of two open problems related to the extension of the notion of level planarity to surfaces different from the plane. Namely, we show that the problems of testing the existence of a level embedding of a level graph on the surface of the rolling cylinder or on the surface of the torus, respectively known by the name of $\textit{Cyclic Level Planarity}$ and $\textit{Torus Level Planarity}$, are polynomial-time solvable. Moreover, we show a complexity dichotomy for testing the $\textit{Simultaneous Level Planarity}$ of a set of level graphs, wit…