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Abstract   We consider graph drawings in which vertices are assigned to layers and edges are drawn as straight line-segments between vertices on adjacent layers. We prove that graphs admitting crossing-free h-layer drawings (for fixed h) have bounded pathwidth. We then use a path decomposition as the basis for a linear-time algorithm to decide if a graph has a crossing-free h-layer drawing (for fixed h). This algorithm is extended to solve related problems, including allowing at most k crossings, or removing at most r edges to leave a crossing-free drawing (for fixed k or r). If the number of crossings or deleted edges is a non-fixed parameter then these problems are NP-complete. For each setting, we can also permit downward drawings of directed graphs and drawings in which edges may span multiple layers, in which case either the total span or the maximum span of edges can be minimized. In contrast to the Sugiyama method for layered graph drawing, our algorithms do not assume a preassignment of the vertices to layers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bipartite graph is biplanar if the vertices can be placed on two parallel lines (layers) in the plane such that there are no edge crossings when edges are drawn as line segments between the layers. In this paper we study the 2-Layer Planarization problem: Can k edges be deleted from a given graph G so that the remaining graph is biplanar? This problem is NP-complete, and remains so if the permutation of the vertices in one layer isfixed (the 1-Layer Planarization problem). We prove that these problems are fixed-parametertractable by giving linear-time algorithms for their solution (for fixed k). In particular, we solve the 2-Layer Planarization problem in O(k · 6k + |G|) time and the 1-Layer Planarization problem in O(3k · |G|) time. We also show that there are polynomial-time constant-approximation algorithms for both problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]