Abstract
We provide the first nontrivial approximation algorithm for MAXIMUM WEIGHT PLANAR SUBGRAPH, the NP-hard problem of finding a heaviest planar subgraph in an edge-weighted graph G . This problem has applications in circuit layout, facility layout, and graph drawing. No previous algorithm for MAXIMUM WEIGHT PLANAR SUBGRAPH had a performance ratio exceeding 1/3 , which is obtained by any algorithm that produces a maximum weight spanning tree in G . Based on the Berman—Ramaiyer Steiner tree algorithm, the new algorithm has performance ratio at least 1/3+1/72 and at most 5/12 . We also show that if G is complete and its edge weights satisfy the triangle inequality, then the performance ratio is at least 3/8 . Furthermore, we derive the first nontrivial performance ratio (7/12 instead of 1/2 ) for the NP-hard SC MAXIMUM WEIGHT OUTERPLANAR SUBGRAPH problem.
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Călinescu, Fernandes, Karloff et al. A New Approximation Algorithm for Finding Heavy Planar Subgraphs. Algorithmica 36, 179–205 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00453-002-1020-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00453-002-1020-3