Upward planar morphs

Abstract

We prove that, given two topologically-equivalent upward planar straight-line drawings of an n-vertex directed graph G, there always exists a morph between them such that all the intermediate drawings of the morph are upward planar and straight-line. Such a morph consists of O(1) morphing steps if G is a reduced planar st-graph, O(n) morphing steps if G is a planar st-graph, O(n) morphing steps if G is a reduced upward planar graph, and O(n2) morphing steps if G is a general upward planar graph. Further, we show that Ω(n) morphing steps might be necessary for an upward planar morph between two topologically-equivalent upward planar straight-line drawings of an n-vertex path