Abstract
Current orthogonal graph drawing algorithms produce drawings which are generally good. However, many times the readability of orthogonal drawings can be significantly improved with a postprocessing technique, called refinement, which improves aesthetic qualities of a drawing such as area, bends, crossings, and total edge length. Refinement is separate from layout and works by analyzing and then fine-tuning the existing drawing in an efficient manner. In this paper we define the problem and goals of orthogonal drawing refinement and introduce a methodology which efficiently refines any orthogonal graph drawing. We have implemented our technique in C++ and conducted preliminary experiments over a set of drawings from five well known orthogonal drawing systems. Experimental analysis shows our technique to produce an average 34% improvement in area, 22% in bends, 19% in crossings, and 34% in total edge length.
Research supported in part by NIST, Advanced Technology Program grant number 70NANB5H1162 and by the Texas Advanced Research Program under Grant No. 009741-040.
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Six, J.M., Kakoulis, K.G., Tollis, I.G. (1998). Refinement of Orthogonal Graph Drawings. In: Whitesides, S.H. (eds) Graph Drawing. GD 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1547. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-37623-2_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-37623-2_23
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