Abstract
The aim of this research is a practical method to draw cable plans of complex
machines. Such plans consist of electronic components and cables connecting
specific ports of the components. Since the machines are configured for each
client individually, cable plans need to be drawn automatically. The drawings
must be well readable so that technicians can use them to debug the machines.
In order to model plug sockets, we introduce port groups; within a group, ports
can change their position (which we use to improve the aesthetics of the
layout), but together the ports of a group must form a contiguous block.
We approach the problem of drawing such cable plans by extending the
well-known Sugiyama framework such that it incorporates ports and port groups.
Since the framework assumes directed graphs, we propose several ways to orient
the edges of the given undirected graph. We compare these methods
experimentally, both on real-world data and synthetic data that carefully
simulates real-world data. We measure the aesthetics of the resulting drawings
by counting bends and crossings. Using these metrics, we compare our approach
to Kieler JVLC 2014, a library for drawing graphs in the presence of port
constraints.
Users
Please
log in to take part in the discussion (add own reviews or comments).