On the structure of Schnyder woods on orientable surfaces

Abstract

We propose a simple generalization of Schnyder woods from the plane to maps on orientable surfaces of higher genus. This is done in the language of angle labelings. Generalizing results of De Fraysseix and Ossona de Mendez, and Felsner, we establish a correspondence between these labelings and orientations and characterize the set of orientations of a map that correspond to such a Schnyder labeling. Furthermore, we study the set of these orientations of a given map and provide a natural partition into distributive lattices depending on the surface homology. This generalizes earlier results of Felsner and Ossona de Mendez. In the toroidal case, a new proof for the existence of Schnyder woods is derived from this approach.