Let $G$ be a perfectly oriented planar graph. Postnikov's boundary measurement construction provides a rational map from the set of positive weight functions on the edges of $G$ onto the appropriate totally nonnegative Grassmann cell. We establish an explicit combinatorial formula for Postnikov's map by expressing each Plücker coordinate of the image as a ratio of two polynomials in the edge weights, with positive integer coefficients. These polynomials are weight generating functions for certain subsets of edges in $G$.
Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science