Drawing Planar Diagrams

KnotTheory`/Navigation  The Mathematica Package KnotTheory` Acknowledgement Setup Naming and Enumeration Presentations Planar Diagrams Some further details Gauss Codes DT (Dowker-Thistlethwaite) Codes Braid Representatives MorseLink Presentations Arc Presentations Conway Notation Graphical Input Graphical Output Drawing Planar Diagrams How does it work? Drawing MorseLink Presentations Drawing Braids Structure and Operations Invariants Invariants from Braid Theory Three Dimensional Invariants The Alexander-Conway Polynomial The Multivariable Alexander Polynomial The Determinant and the Signature The Jones Polynomial How is the Jones polynomial computed? The Coloured Jones Polynomials The A2 Invariant Quantum knot invariants The HOMFLY-PT Polynomial The Kauffman Polynomial Finite Type (Vassiliev) Invariants Khovanov Homology Heegaard Floer Knot Homology R-Matrix Invariants Extras Included with KnotTheory` Drawing with TubePlot Standalone_TubePlot Using the LinKnot package WikiLink QuantumGroups` Lightly Documented Features A Sample KnotTheory` Session Further Usage Example Prime Links with a Non-Prime Component "Rubberband" Brunnian Links Identifying Knots within a List Cabling Burau's Theorem Further Knot Theory Software KnotPlot Knotscape Xknots Extending/Modifying KnotTheory` Bugs How to Edit this Manual...

My summer student Emily Redelmeier is in the process of writing a program that uses circle packing to draw an arbitrary object given as a PD as in Planar Diagrams. At the moment her program is still slow, limited and sometimes buggy, but it is already quite useful, as the following lines show:

(For In[1] see Setup)

In[1]:= ?DrawPD DrawPD[pd] takes the planar diagram description pd and creates a graphics object containing a picture of the knot. DrawPD[pd,options], where options is a list of rules, allows the user to control some of the parameters. OuterFace->n sets the face at infinity to the face numbered n. OuterFace->{e_1,e_2,...,e_n} sets the face at infinity to a face which has edges e_1, e_2, ..., e_n in the planar diagram description. Gap->g sets the size of the gap around a crossing to length g.

In[2]:= DrawPD::about DrawPD was written by Emily Redelmeier at the University of Toronto in the summers of 2003 and 2004.

Thus, for example, here's the torus knot T(4,3):

In[4]:=	Show[DrawPD[TorusKnot[4, 3]]]
Out[4]=	-Graphics-

One problem we currently have is that crossings come out at non-uniform sizes, hence in the picture below you may need magnifying glasses to decide who's over and who's under:

In[5]:=

MillettUnknot = PD[X[1,10,2,11], X[9,2,10,3], X[3,7,4,6], X[15,5,16,4], X[5,17,6,16],X[7,14,8,15], X[8,18,9,17], X[11,18,12,19], X[19,12,20,13], X[13,20,14,1]];

In[7]:=	Show[DrawPD[MillettUnknot]]
Out[7]=	-Graphics-

In such a situation, the option Gap is sometimes handy:

In[9]:=	Show[DrawPD[MillettUnknot, {Gap -> 0.03}]]
Out[9]=	-Graphics-

How does it work?

DrawPD uses Andreev's theorem [Andreev1], [Andreev2], which states that every planar graph can be realized, nearly uniquely, as the graph of tangencies of circles drawn within the unit disk. That is, to every vertex of $G$ one may associate a disk within the unit disk, so that the interiors of these disks are disjoint and they are tangent iff the corresponding vertices are connected by an edge. The Andreev "circle packing" corresponding to the knot 4_1 is the first half of the picture below (circle 13 is the unit disk itself).

But now every ingredient of the original knot (every arc, crossing and face) has a disk in the plane in which it can be cleanly drawn and clashes are guaranteed not to occur. Furthermore, knowing the precise coordinates of all the tangency points allows us to represent each ingredient by some nice smooth arcs that meet smoothly. The result is the second half of the picture above. Removing all the circles, what remains is the desired clean planar picture of 4_1.

[Andreev1] ^  A. Andreev, On convex polyhedra in Lobacevskii spaces (in Russian), Math. Sbornik USSR, Nov. Ser. 81 (1970) 445-478.

[Andreev2] ^  A. Andreev, On convex polyhedra of finite volume in Lobacevskii spaces (in Russian), Math. Sbornik USSR, Nov. Ser. 83 (1970) 256-260.