Streamed Graph Drawing and the File Maintenance Problem

In streamed graph drawing, a planar graph, G, is given incrementally as a data stream and a straight-line drawing of G must be updated after each new edge is released. To preserve the mental map, changes to the drawing should be minimized after each update, and Binucci et al. show that exponential area is necessary and sufficient for a number of streamed graph drawings for trees if edges are not allowed to move at all. We show that a number of streamed graph drawings can, in fact, be done with polynomial area, including planar streamed graph drawings of trees, tree-maps, and outerplanar graphs, if we allow for a small number of coordinate movements after each update. Our algorithms involve an interesting connection to a classic algorithmic problem—the file maintenance problem—and we also give new algorithms for this problem in a framework where bulk memory moves are allowed.