Abstract. We consider the problem of simultaneous embedding of planar graphs. There are two variants of this problem, one in which the mapping between the vertices of the two graphs is given and another in which the mapping is not given. In particular, given a mapping, we show how to embed two paths on an n × n grid, and two caterpillar graphs on a 3n × 3n grid. We show that it is not always possible to simultaneously embed three paths. If the mapping is not given, we show that any number of outerplanar graphs can be embedded simultaneously on an O(n) × O(n) grid, and an outerplanar and general planar graph can be embedded simultaneously on an O(n 2 ) × O(n 2 ) grid.
Given an n-vertex graph and two straight-line planar drawings of the graph that have the same faces and the same outer face, we show that there is a morph (i.e., a continuous transformation) between the two drawings that preserves straight-line planarity and consists of O(n) steps, which we prove is optimal in the worst case. Each step is a unidirectional linear morph, which means that every vertex moves at constant speed along a straight line, and the lines are parallel although the vertex speeds may differ. Thus we provide an efficient version of Cairns’ 1944 proof of the existence of straight-line planarity-preserving morphs for triangulated graphs, which required an exponential number of steps
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