Illustrating a graph coloring algorithm based on the principle of inclusion and exclusion using GraphTea.

Abstract

Graph theory is becoming increasingly important in various scientific disciplines. The graph coloring problem is an abstraction of partitioning entities in the presence of conflicts. It is therefore among the most prominent problems in graph theory with a wide range of different application areas. The importance of graph coloring has led to the development of various algorithms to cope with the high computational complexity of this NP-complete problem. A comprehensive understanding of existing algorithms is not only crucial to future algorithm research in this area, but also beneficial to the education of students in mathematics and computer science. To better explain sophisticated graph coloring algorithms, this paper proposes the educational tool GraphTea. More precisely, we demonstrate the design of GraphTea to illustrate a recent graph coloring algorithm based on the principle of inclusion and exclusion. Our experiences indicate that GraphTea makes teaching this algorithm in classroom easier.