Any graph drawing can be characterised by a range of computational aesthetic metrics. For example, a given drawing might be described as having eight crossings, a mean angular resolution of 0.34, and an edge orthogonality value of 0.72. However, without knowing the distribution of these metrics it is hard to compare the quality of drawings of different graphs, nor know whether a given drawing is typical or an outlier within the space of all possible drawings. This paper explores the range and distribution of ten normalised graph drawing layout metrics, based on graphs created by six graph generation algorithms and drawings created by six popular layout algorithms. We include the “Rome" and “North" graph repositories in our analysis. Our exploration of the multi-dimensional aesthetics space allows for comparisons between the graph drawing algorithms, highlighting those that cover larger or smaller volumes of the aesthetics space. We calculate the correlation coefficients between the metrics, indicating those that may conflict with each other (negatively correlated), and those that may be redundant (positively correlated). Our results will be useful as the basis for simulated annealing or gradient descent layout algorithms, for identifying the best layout algorithms for producing a specified combination and range of aesthetics, and for informing experimental controls in human empirical studies.
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DeepGD: A Deep Learning Framework for Graph Drawing Using GNN
Abstract—In the past decades, many graph drawing techniques have been proposed for generating aesthetically pleasing graph layouts. However, it remains a challenging task since different layout methods tend to highlight different characteristics of the graphs. Recently, studies on deep learning based graph drawing algorithm have emerged but they are often not generalizable to arbitrary graphs without re-training. In this paper, we propose a Convolutional Graph Neural Network based deep learning framework, DeepGD, which can draw arbitrary graphs once trained. It attempts to generate layouts by compromising among multiple pre-specified aesthetics considering a good graph layout usually complies with multiple aesthetics simultaneously. In order to balance the trade-off, we propose two adaptive training strategies which adjust the weight factor of each aesthetic dynamically during training. The quantitative and qualitative assessment of DeepGD demonstrates that it is capable of drawing arbitrary graphs effectively, while being flexible at accommodating different aesthetic criteria.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1955764
- PAR ID:
- 10328001
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE computer graphics and applications
- Volume:
- 41
- ISSN:
- 0272-1716
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 32-44
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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