Graph Coloring

Pratishtha Pandey
3rd C.S.E

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Coloring Graphs

This handout:
• Coloring maps and graphs
• Chromatic number
• Problem Definition
• Our Algorithms
• Applications of graph coloring

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 Coloring Graphs
 Definition:A graph has been colored if a color has
been assigned to each vertex in such a way that
adjacent vertices have different colors.

 Definition: The chromatic number of a graph is

the smallest number of colors with which it can be
colored.
In the example above, the chromatic number is 4.

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 Preliminaries

A Graph With 6 Vertices and 8 Edges

A Vertex

An Edge

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Preliminaries

Adjacent vertices

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Preliminaries

Adjacent vertices

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Preliminaries

Adjacent vertices
B B and C are
adjacent to A

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 The Graph Coloring Problem

 Objective: Assign colors to vertices so that

adjacent vertices do not have the same color
and use as few colors as possible 8
 The Graph Coloring Problem

A Valid Coloring

 Objective: Assign colors to vertices so that

adjacent vertices do not have the same color
and use as few colors as possible 9
 The Graph Coloring Problem

Conflict
An Invalid Coloring

 Objective: Assign colors to vertices so that

adjacent vertices do not have the same color
and use as few colors as possible 10
 The m-Coloring optimization
Problem
 Objective: Minimize the number of colors used

Total Colors Used: 5 Total Colors Used: 3

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Coloring Graphs Naïvely
 Question: Can an n-vertex graph be colored with k
colors? (This question is equivalent to the graph
coloring problem.)
 Naïve algorithm: try all possible ways of assigning k
colors to the n vertices
 If a valid coloring is found then answer yes. Otherwise,
answer no
 Time: there are kn possible colorings to check
 Example: Can a 30-vertex graph be colored with 3 colors?
 330 possible colorings
 106 colorings per second
 6 MILLION YEARS !!!
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Graph Coloring
A
 As an example:
 The vertices are B F
enumerated in order A-F
 The colors are given in
order: R, G, B C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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Graph Coloring

B F

C E

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 A

Graph Coloring
B F

C E

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Complexity of Graph Coloring
 Complexity: Algorithm for finding the
optimal solution requires exponential time.

 Run Time: O(2nn).

 Heuristics: Find good solutions in a

reasonable amount of time

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 Coloring Planar Graphs
 Definition: A graph is planar if it can be
drawn in a plane without edge-crossings.

 Thefour color theorem: For every planar

graph, the chromatic number is ≤ 4.
Was posed as a conjecture in the 1850s. Finally proved in
1976 (Appel and Haken) by the aid of computers.
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 Coloring maps
 Color a map such that two regions with a common border
are assigned different colors.

 Each map can be represented by a graph:

 Each region of the map is represented by a vertex;
 Edges connect two vertices if the regions represented by these
vertices have a common border.
 The resulting graph is called the dual graph of the map.
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28
Graph Theory for the Four Color Conjecture

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Graph Theory for the Four Color Conjecture

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Graph Theory for the Four Color Conjecture

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 Any Planar Map Is Four-Colorable
Planar graph - a graph drawn in a
plane without any of its edges
crossing or intersecting
Each vertex (A,B,C,D,E) represents a
region in a graph
Each edge represents regions that
share a boundary

“In any plane graph each vertex can be assigned

exactly one of four colors so that adjacent vertices have
different colors.” -Four-Color Conjecture

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 An Application of Graph Coloring
Class Scheduling
Chem
Math Cannot be offered
at the same time
Art • Math – Bio
• Math – Chem
• Bio – Music
Music • Bio – Econ
Bio
• Music – Chem
• Music – Econ
• Chem – Art
• Art – Econ
Econ

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 An Application of Graph Coloring
Class Scheduling
Chem
Math Cannot be offered
at the same time
Art • Math – Bio
• Math – Chem
• Bio – Music
Music • Bio – Econ
Bio
• Music – Chem
• Music – Econ
• Chem – Art
• Art – Econ
Econ

34
 An Application of Graph Coloring
Class Scheduling
Chem
Math Cannot be offered
at the same time
Art • Math – Bio
• Math – Chem
• Bio – Music
Music • Bio – Econ
Bio
• Music – Chem
• Music – Econ
• Chem – Art
• Art – Econ
Econ

35
 An Application of Graph Coloring
Class Scheduling
Chem
Math Cannot be offered
at the same time
Art • Math – Bio
• Math – Chem
• Bio – Music
Music • Bio – Econ
Bio
• Music – Chem
• Music – Econ
• Chem – Art
• Art – Econ
Econ

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 An Application of Graph Coloring
Class Scheduling
Chem
Math

Art

Music
Bio
Goal : minimize the
number of periods (colors)
used
Econ

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 An Application of Graph Coloring
Class Scheduling
Chem
Math

Schedule
Art
• Period 1

• Period 2
Music
Bio
• Period 3

Econ

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Optimization Problems

 The previous examples simply found all the solutions

(Nqueens) or any single solution (Graph Coloring)
 What if we have a cost associated with each solution
and we want to find the optimal solution
 As an example take Weighed Graph Coloring
 R  $2, G  $3, B  $5, Y  $2

 A fully connected graph of 3 vertices

 Note that some of the connections on the next slide are

missing to keep the picture fairly clean

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Weighted Graph Coloring
By state space tree

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m-Coloring of a Graph
 We represent graph by adjacency matrix
G[1:n,1:n),Where
G[i,j]=1 if (i,j) is an edge of G.
Otherwise, G[i,j]=0
The colors are represented by 1,2….,m.
and solutions are given by the n-tuple(x1,
…,xn),where xi is the color of node i.
Array x[]=0 firstly;

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Algorithm mColoring(k)
// This algorithm was formed using the recursive backtracking
schema.The graph is represented by its boolean adjacency
matrix G[1:n,1:n].
// All asignment of 1,2,….,m to the vertices are assigned distinct
integers are printed. k is the index of the next vertex to color.
{
Repeat
{ NextValue(k); //Assign to x[k] a legal color.
if (x[k]=0) then return; // No new color possible
if(k=n) then // At most color have been used to
color
write (x[1:n]);
else mColoring(k+1);
} until (false);
}

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Algorithm NextValue(k)
{
repeat
{
x[k]:=(x[k]+1) mod(m+1); //Next highest colour.
if (x[k]=0) then return; // All colors have been used.
for( j:=1 to n) do
{ // check if this color is distinct from adjacent colors.
if ((G[k,j]=!0) and (x[k]=x[j]))
// If (k,j) is and edge and if adj. vertices have same color.
then break;
}
if (j=n+1) then return;
} until (false); //otherwise find another color.
}
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 Time Bounded
The upper bound on the computing time of mColoring can
be derived at by noticing that the number of internal nodes
n-
in the state space tree is ∑i=0 mi .
At each1internal node, O(mn) time is spent by NextValue
to determine the children corresponding to legal colorings.
Hence the total time is bounded by

∑
n-
i=0 mi+1
n= ∑
n
i=1 mi
n = n(mn+1
-2)/(m-1)
1
=O(nmn)

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4-Node Graph
1 2

3
4

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 X1 = 1 3
2

2 3 1 2
X 2= 1 3

1 2 1 2 3 1 3
X 3= 1 3 2 3 2

2 3 2 2 3 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 1 2 2 1 2
X 4=

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Other Applications of Graph Coloring
CPU Registers Football games

Classroom/Final Schedules Radio Network 47

 Summary
Many problems that appear
different on the surface can be
efficiently reduced to each other,
revealing a deeper similarity

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Thank You

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