Conditions for Unique Graph Realizations

Abstract

. The graph realization problem is that of computing the relative locations of a set of vertices placed in Euclidean space, relying only upon some set of inter-vertex distance measurements. This paper is concerned with the closely related problem of determining whether or not a graph has a unique realization. Both these problems are NP-hard, but the proofs rely upon special combinations of edge lengths. If we assume the vertex locations are unrelated then the uniqueness question can be approached from a purely graph theoretic angle that ignores edge lengths. This paper identifies three necessary graph theoretic conditions for a graph to have a unique realization in any dimension. Efficient sequential and NC algorithms are presented for each condition, although these algorithms have very different flavors in different dimensions. 1. Introduction. Consider a graph G = (V; E) consisting of a set of n vertices and m edges, along with a real number associated with each edge. Now try to assi...