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 experimentally compare our
approach to Kieler JVLC 2014, a library for
drawing graphs in the presence of port
constraints. Our method produced 10--30 \% fewer
crossings, while it performed equally well or
slightly worse than Kieler with respect to the
number of bends and the time used to compute a
drawing.
%0 Journal Article
%1 zwbw-ldugg-CGTA22
%A Zink, Johannes
%A Walter, Julian
%A Baumeister, Joachim
%A Wolff, Alexander
%D 2022
%J Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications
%K Sugiyama_framework experimental_evaluation layered_drawings myown port_constraints
%N 101886
%P 1--29
%R 10.1016/j.comgeo.2022.101886
%T Layered Drawing of Undirected Graphs with
Generalized Port Constraints
%V 105--106
%X 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 experimentally compare our
approach to Kieler JVLC 2014, a library for
drawing graphs in the presence of port
constraints. Our method produced 10--30 \% fewer
crossings, while it performed equally well or
slightly worse than Kieler with respect to the
number of bends and the time used to compute a
drawing.
@article{zwbw-ldugg-CGTA22,
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. \par 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 experimentally compare our
approach to Kieler [JVLC 2014], a library for
drawing graphs in the presence of port
constraints. Our method produced 10--30 \% fewer
crossings, while it performed equally well or
slightly worse than Kieler with respect to the
number of bends and the time used to compute a
drawing.},
added-at = {2024-07-14T10:03:47.000+0200},
arxiv = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.10583},
author = {Zink, Johannes and Walter, Julian and Baumeister, Joachim and Wolff, Alexander},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2762b7e18e9513ac6e1d1e8f992f1377e/awolff},
doi = {10.1016/j.comgeo.2022.101886},
interhash = {999cea5dde82dfdccb2a2e5a369ca7ee},
intrahash = {762b7e18e9513ac6e1d1e8f992f1377e},
journal = {Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications},
keywords = {Sugiyama_framework experimental_evaluation layered_drawings myown port_constraints},
number = 101886,
pages = {1--29},
slides = {http://www1.pub.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/pub/wolff/slides/wzbw-ldugg-GD20-slides.pdf},
timestamp = {2024-07-14T10:03:47.000+0200},
title = {Layered Drawing of Undirected Graphs with
Generalized Port Constraints},
video = {https://vimeo.com/455216116},
volume = {105--106},
year = 2022
}