  In this paper, we study problems of connecting classes of points via
noncrossing structures. Given a set of colored terminal points, we want to find
a graph for each color that connects all terminals of its color with the
restriction that no two graphs cross each other. We consider these problems
both on the Euclidean plane and in planar graphs.
  On the algorithmic side, we give a Gap-ETH-tight EPTAS for the two-colored
traveling salesman problem as well as for the red-blue-green separation problem
(in which we want to separate terminals of three colors with two noncrossing
polygons of minimum length), both on the Euclidean plane. This improves the
work of Arora and Chang (ICALP 2003) who gave a slower PTAS for the simpler
red-blue separation problem. For the case of unweighted plane graphs, we also
show a PTAS for the two-colored traveling salesman problem. All these results
are based on our new patching procedure that might be of independent interest.
  On the negative side, we show that the problem of connecting terminal pairs
with noncrossing paths is NP-hard on the Euclidean plane, and that the problem
of finding two noncrossing spanning trees is NP-hard in plane graphs.
