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We study the problem of computing drawings of planar graphs in sub-quadratic area, by allowing edge crossings. We first prove that sub-quadratic area cannot be achieved if only a constant number of crossings per edge is allowed. More precisely, we show that the same area lower bounds as in the crossing-free case hold for straight-line and poly-line drawings of planar graphs and seriesparallel graphs. Motivated by this result, we study straight-line drawings of planar graphs where the number of crossings per edge is not bounded by a constant. In this case, we prove that every planar graph admits a straight-line drawing with sub-quadratic area and sub-linear thickness (the thickness of a drawing is the minimum number of colors that can be assigned to the edges so that each color class induces a planar drawing). We also prove that every partial 2-tree (and hence every series-parallel graph) admits a linear-area straight-line drawing with thickness at most 10. It is worth remarking that a drawing with thickness h - 1 is h-quasi planar, i.e. it does not contain h-mutually crossing edges. The main ingredient to prove our results is (c, t)-track layouts, a combinatorial tool that can be represented as a drawing where: (i) each vertex is assigned to one of t horizontal layers (tracks), (ii) no two adjacent vertices are on the same track, (iii) each edge receives one of c colors, so that no two edges of the same color (u, v) and (w, z) cross if u, w are on the same track, and v, z are on the same track. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is proved that every series-parallel digraph whose maximum vertex degree is Δ admits an upward planar drawing with at most one bend per edge such that each edge segment has one of Δ distinct slopes. The construction is worst-case optimal in terms of the number of slopes, and it gives rise to drawings with optimal angular resolution π Δ. A variant of the drawing algorithm is used to show that (non-directed) reduced series-parallel graphs and flat series-parallel graphs have a (non-upward) 1-bend planar drawing with ⌈ Δ 2 ⌉ distinct slopes if biconnected, and with ⌈ Δ 2 ⌉ + 1 distinct slopes if connected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the problem of representing topological graphs as polyline drawings with few bends per edge and such that the topology of the graph is either fully or partially preserved. More formally, let G be a simple topological graph and let Γ be a polyline drawing of G. Drawing Γ partially preserves the topology of G if it has the same external boundary, the same circular order of the edges around each vertex, and the same set of crossings as G , while it fully preserves the topology of G if the planarization of G and the planarization of Γ have the same planar embedding. We prove that if the set of crossing-free edges of G forms a biconnected (connected) spanning subgraph, then G admits a polyline drawing that partially preserves its topology and that has curve complexity at most one (three), i.e., with at most one (three) bend(s) per edge. If, however, the set of crossing-free edges of G is not a connected spanning subgraph, the curve complexity may be Ω (n) , while it is O (1) if the number of connected components is O (1). Concerning drawings that fully preserve the topology, we show that if G is k -skew (i.e., it becomes planar after removing k suitably chosen edges), it admits one such drawing with curve complexity at most 2 k ; for 1-skew graphs, the curve complexity can be reduced to one, which is a tight bound. We also consider optimal 2-plane graphs (i.e., with at most two crossings per edge and maximum edge density), for which we discuss trade-offs between curve complexity and crossing angle resolution of drawings that fully preserve the topology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]