Polar graphs were introduced by Zelinka (1974) and Zelinka (1976a), and called switch graphs by Cook (2003). Zelinka, Bohdan (1974), "Polar graphs and railway traffic", Aplikace Matematiky, 19: 169–176. Zelinka, Bohdan (1976a), "Isomorphisms of polar and polarized graphs", Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal, 26 (3): 339–351, doi:10.21136/CMJ.1976.101409. Cook, Matthew (2003), "Still life theory", New Constructions in Cellular Automata, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Oxford University Press, pp. 93–118.
Bidirected graphs were introduced by Edmonds & Johnson (1970), and called polarized graphs by Zelinka (1974) and Zelinka (1976a)Edmonds, Jack; Johnson, Ellis L. (1970), "Matching: a well-solved class of linear programs", Combinatorial Structures and their Applications: Proceedings of the Calgary Symposium, June 1969, New York: Gordon and Breach. Reprinted in Combinatorial Optimization — Eureka, You Shrink!, Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2570, 2003, pp. 27–30, doi:10.1007/3-540-36478-1_3. Zelinka, Bohdan (1974), "Polar graphs and railway traffic", Aplikace Matematiky, 19: 169–176. Zelinka, Bohdan (1976a), "Isomorphisms of polar and polarized graphs", Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal, 26 (3): 339–351, doi:10.21136/CMJ.1976.101409.