Algorithmic analysis of rectilinear-upward planarity testing reveals NP-completeness and efficient solutions for specific graph classes.
A rectilinear-upward planar drawing of a digraph G is a crossing-free drawing of G where each edge is either a horizontal or a vertical segment, and such that no directed edge points downward. Rectilinear-Upward Planarity Testing is the problem of deciding whether a digraph G admits a rectilinear-upward planar drawing. We study the complexity of Rectilinear-Upward Planarity Testing and provide several algorithmic results. Precisely, we prove that: ( i ) the problem is NP-complete, even if G is biconnected; ( i i ) it can be solved in linear time when an upward planar embedding of G is fixed; ( i i i ) the problem is polynomial-time solvable for biconnected digraphs of treewidth at most two, i.e., for digraphs whose underlying undirected graph is a series-parallel graph; ( i v ) the problem is fixed-parameter tractable (namely, fixed-parameter linear) for all biconnected graphs, when parameterized by the number of sources and sinks in the digraph. • We study the algorithmic complexity of a problem that combines two well-established topics in graph drawing, namely rectilinear planar drawings and upward planar drawings. This problems, called rectilinear-upward planarity testing, asks to decide whether an input planar di-graph admits a planar drawing where each edge is either a horizontal or a vertical segment, and no edge points downwards. • We prove that rectilinear-upward planarity testing is NP-complete, even for biconnected digraphs. • We provide a linear-time algorithm for rectilinear-upward planarity testing of digraphs with a fixed upward planar embedding. • We provide a quadratic-time algorithm for rectilinear-upward planarity testing of biconnected partial 2-trees (i.e., digraphs whose underlying undirected graph is series-parallel) in the variable embedding setting. • We provide a fixed-parameter linear (FPL) algorithm for rectilinear- upward planarity testing of general biconnected digraphs in the variable embedding setting.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Didimo et al. (2026) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: