Graph drawing and Visualization

Information visualization is a classic topic that has become crucial in our information-heavy digital age – from slick infographics to detailed interactive cartographic maps, they help us visually understand and interpret the world. The subarea of network visualization focusses on applications in which the underlying data set is a graph. Graph drawing has a rich history in computer science, but new challenges are posed by the unprecedented size, dynamic nature, and interactive aspects of present-day graphs.

Graph drawing is, in essence, a geometric operation: abstract vertices and edges need to be turned into concrete points and curves in a two-dimensional plane. We study the fundamental underlying geometric problems that arise in this operation.

Lombardi drawing of the full binary outertree on 1025 vertices

Two main challenges need to be addressed. The first challenge is to translate requirements that are specific to certain applications into mathematically quantifiable properties. The second challenge is to design correct and efficient algorithms that satisfy a given set of properties.

Highlighted Research

Graph drawing and visualization is a diverse field. To learn more about the different subjects we research, please follow the links below.  

Set VisualisationLombardi Drawings
Example of a red-blue-purple spanning graphA planar Lombardi Drawing

 

Highlighted Publications
Maarten Löffler, Csaba Tóth: Linear-size Universal Point Sets for One-bend Drawings. Proc. 23rd International Symposium on Graph Drawing (to appear), 2015
Michael Hoffmann, Marc J. van Kreveld, Vincent Kusters, Günter Rote: Quality Ratios of Measures for Graph Drawing Styles. CCCG 2014
Ferran Hurtado, Matias Korman, Marc van Kreveld, Maarten Löffler, Vera Sacristán, Rodrigo I. Silveira, Bettina Speckmann: Colored Spanning Graphs for Set Visualization. Proc. 21st International Symposium on Graph Drawing (to appear), 2013
Collaborators

We collaborate with many people from many places

Universities     TU Eindhoven     TU Graz
      UCI (Irvine, California)     Tohoku (Japan)
      TU Wien     ETH (Zürich)
      FU Berlin     UPC (Barcelona)
      CSUN (Northridge, California)

 

Financial Support: NWO