Hill conjectured that the minimum number of crossings in a drawing of the complete graph $K_n$ in the plane is exactly $$Z(n) = \frac{1}{4} \bigg\lfloor\frac{n}{2}\bigg\rfloor \left\lfloor\frac{n-1}{2}\right\rfloor \left\lfloor\frac{n-2}{2}\right\rfloor\left\lfloor\frac{n-3}{2}\right\rfloor.$$
In the literature, two general constructions of drawings of $K_n$ with $Z(n)$ crossings appear:
1) the cylindrical (or tin can) drawing, where vertices are placed on the boundaries of the bottom and the top circular face of a cylinder and edges are drawn as geodesics,
2) a $2$-page (or cycle) drawing where the vertices form a regular $n$-gon, with the diagonals that are "more horizontal than vertical" drawn inside the $n$-gon and the remaining diagonals drawn outside the $n$-gon. Recently Abrego et al. showed that all optimal $2$-page drawings of $K_n$ are basically the same (up to some boundary effects for odd $n$).
The question:
Are there other known classes of drawings of $K_n$ with $Z(n)$ crossings? I am especially interested in explicit constructions like the two above.
References:
Edit:
Apparently there is a rather broad class of drawings with crossing number $Z(n)+O(n^3)$, which generalize the cylindrical drawings:
3) A spherical drawing is a drawing on the sphere where edges are drawn as shortest arcs.
Moon showed that a random spherical drawing of $K_n$ has expected crossing number $\frac{1}{64} n(n-1)(n-2)(n-3)$.
I think the following construction must be known but I couldn't find any reference.
For $n$ even, if one places $n/2$ pairs of antipodal points on the sphere (so that no three pairs are on the same great circle), then the crossing number of the induced spherical drawing is $Z(n)+X(n)$ where the term $X(n)$ denotes the number of crossings of the $n/2$ arcs (half-circles) connecting the pairs of antipodal points (so $X(n) < n^2/8$). For the spherical analogue of cylindrical drawings, we have $X(n)=0$.
Question 2:
Is there some simple criterion for the positions of the pairs of antipodal vertices so that the half-circles can be drawn in a non-crossing way? Can one obtain, in this way, "antipodal" spherical drawings with $Z(n)$ crossings that are not cylindrical?
Question 3:
Dropping the condition that vertices should form antipodal pairs, are there spherical drawings with $Z(n)$ crossings that are not cylindrical?
Edit 2:
The antipodal spherical drawings can be generalized a bit:
3) An antipodal pseudospherical drawing: for even $n$, place $n/2$ pairs of vertices in the plane arbitrarily. Through every two pairs $(a_1, a_2)$ and $(b_1, b_2)$, draw a simple closed curve that visits the four points in the order $a_1,b_1,a_2,b_2$, and does not pass through other vertices. The curve represents four edges of $K_n$. Every two such curves cross precisely twice, either at vertices or at other points (the crossings of the emerging drawing of $K_n$). In particular, the curves form an arrangement of pseudocircles. Finally, for each pair $(a_1^i, a_2^i)$, select another pseudocircle $\rho_i$ passing through $a_1^i$ and $a_2^i$ and draw one of its segments $\gamma_i$ between $a_1^i$ and $a_2^i$, so that no two curves $\gamma_i$ and $\gamma_j$ cross.
From the three non-equivalent minimal drawings of $K_8$, the cylindrical and the $2$-page drawing are both antipodal pseudospherical drawings. The optimal $2$-page drawing of $K_{10}$ is not antipodal pseudospherical (it does not contain a perfect matching of edges $\gamma_i$: every such edge would have to have $6$ crossings).
Question 4:
For even $n\ge 10$, are there antipodal pseudospherical drawings of $K_n$ with $Z(n)$ crossings that are not cylindrical?
