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Deutsch Intern
Chair of Computer Science I - Algorithms and Complexity

Readable Graph Drawing

Graphs are not only a common tool for modelling and solving problems in computer science, but are also often used for visualizing data. Concrete drawings of graphs are understood also by non-experts; the representation of a link or a connection is intuitive. Moreover, methods for graph drawing can be used for visualizing real networks such as metro networks. We develop and investigate algorithms for creating readable drawings of graphs.

The literature describes many provably good algorithms for drawing graphs. Rarely, however, do these algorithms produce well-readable drawings. That is because it is often already hard to optimize only one desired criterion such as the number of bends or the number of edge crossings. This leads to other readability requirements not being fulfilled, perhaps because some edges are very long or some have many bends. It can, therefore, also make sense to do without solving partial problems optimally and rather balance several criteria against each other. A drawing can, for example, become better readable if there are slightly more crossings but all with large crossing angles.

Most existing algorithms for graph drawing work, furthermore, only on planar graphs, that is, graphs that can be drawn without crossings. Especially graphs based on real-world data are, however, usually not planar. If such graphs are large, which is not unusual, then single nodes or edges are hardly distinguishable in a drawing. There exist several approaches to draw such graphs: groups of edges are bundled or clusters of nodes are formed. So far, however, there is no method that always produces readable drawings.

Researchers

Publications

  • Computing Optimal-Height Tangles Faster Firman, Oksana; Kindermann, Philipp; Ravsky, Alexander; Wolff, Alexander; Zink, Johannes in Proc. 27th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’19), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, D. Archambault, C. D. T{’o}th (eds.) (2019). (Vol. 11904) 203–215.
  • Compact Drawings of 1-Planar Graphs with Right-Angle Crossings and Few Bends Chaplick, Steven; Lipp, Fabian; Wolff, Alexander; Zink, Johannes in Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications (2019). 84 50–68.
  • Stick Graphs with Length Constraints Chaplick, Steven; Kindermann, Philipp; L{"o}ffler, Andre; Thiele, Florian; Wolff, Alexander; Zaft, Alexander; Zink, Johannes in Proc. 27th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’19), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, D. Archambault, C. D. T{’o}th (eds.) (2019). (Vol. 11904) 3–17.
  • Drawing Graphs on Few Circles and Few Spheres Kryven, Myroslav; Ravsky, Alexander; Wolff, Alexander in Journal of Graph Algorithms & Applications (2019). 23(2) 371–391.
  • Orthogonal and Smooth Orthogonal Layouts of 1-Planar Graphs with Low Edge Complexity Argyriou, Evmorfia; Cornelsen, Sabine; F{"o}rster, Henry; Kaufmann, Michael; N{"o}llenburg, Martin; Okamoto, Yoshio; Raftopoulou, Chrysanthi; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 26th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’18), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, T. Biedl, A. Kerren (eds.) (2018). (Vol. 11282) 509–523.
  • Computing Storylines with Few Block Crossings van Dijk, Thomas C.; Lipp, Fabian; Markfelder, Peter; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 25th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’17), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, F. Frati, K.-L. Ma (eds.) (2018). (Vol. 10692) 365–378.
  • Planar L-Drawings of Directed Graphs Chaplick, Steven; Chimani, Markus; Cornelsen, Sabine; {Da Lozzo}, Giordano; N{"o}llenburg, Martin; Patrignani, Maurizio; Tollis, Ioannis G.; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 25th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’17), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, F. Frati, K.-L. Ma (eds.) (2018). (Vol. 10692) 465–478.
  • Compact Drawings of 1-Planar Graphs with Right-Angle Crossings and Few Bends Chaplick, Steven; Lipp, Fabian; Wolff, Alexander; Zink, Johannes in Proc. 26th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’18), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, T. Biedl, A. Kerren (eds.) (2018). (Vol. 11282) 137–151.
  • Beyond Outerplanarity Chaplick, Steven; Kryven, Myroslav; Liotta, Giuseppe; L{"o}ffler, Andre; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 25th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’17), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, F. Frati, K.-L. Ma (eds.) (2018). (Vol. 10692) 546–559.
  • On the Maximum Crossing Number Chimani, Markus; Felsner, Stefan; Kobourov, Stephen; Ueckerdt, Torsten; Valtr, Pavel; Wolff, Alexander in Journal of Graph Algorithms & Applications (2018). 22(1) 67–87.
  • Obstructing Visibilities with One Obstacle Chaplick, Steven; Lipp, Fabian; Park, {Ji-won}; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 24th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’16), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Y. Hu, M. N{"o}llenburg (eds.) (2016). (Vol. 9801) 295–308.
  • Drawing Graphs on Few Lines and Few Planes Chaplick, Steven; Fleszar, Krzysztof; Lipp, Fabian; Ravsky, Alexander; Verbitsky, Oleg; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 24th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’16), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Y. Hu, M. N{"o}llenburg (eds.) (2016). (Vol. 9801) 166–180.
  • Snapping Graph Drawings to the Grid Optimally L{"o}ffler, Andre; van Dijk, Thomas C.; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 24th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’16), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Y. Hu, M. N{"o}llenburg (eds.) (2016). (Vol. 9801) 144–151.
  • Block Crossings in Storyline Visualizations van Dijk, Thomas C.; Fink, Martin; Fischer, Norbert; Lipp, Fabian; Markfelder, Peter; Ravsky, Alexander; Suri, Subhash; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 24th Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’16), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Y. Hu, M. N{"o}llenburg (eds.) (2016). (Vol. 9801) 382–398.
  • Faster Force-Directed Graph Drawing with the Well-Separated Pair Decomposition Lipp, Fabian; Wolff, ALexander; Zink, Johannes in Proc. 23rd Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’15), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, E. {Di Giacomo}, A. Lubiw (eds.) (2015). (Vol. 9411) 52–59.
  • Pixel and Voxel Representations of Graphs Alam, Md. Jawaherul; Bl{"a}sius, Thomas; Rutter, Ignaz; Ueckerdt, Torsten; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 23rd Int. Symp. Graph Drawing & Network Vis. (GD’15), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, E. {Di Giacomo}, A. Lubiw (eds.) (2015). (Vol. 9411) 472–486.
  • Drawing Graphs within Restricted Area Aulbach, Maximilian; Fink, Martin; Schuhmann, Julian; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 22nd Int. Sympos. Graph Drawing (GD’14), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, C. Duncan, A. Symvonis (eds.) (2014). (Vol. 8871) 367–379.
  • On Monotone Drawings of Trees Kindermann, Philipp; Schulz, Andr{’e}; Spoerhase, Joachim; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 22nd Int. Sympos. Graph Drawing (GD’14), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, C. Duncan, A. Symvonis (eds.) (2014). (Vol. 8871) 488–500.
  • Luatodonotes: Boundary Labeling for Annotations in Texts Kindermann, Philipp; Lipp, Fabian; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 22nd Int. Sympos. Graph Drawing (GD’14), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, C. Duncan, A. Symvonis (eds.) (2014). (Vol. 8871) 76–88.
  • Drawing (Complete) Binary Tanglegrams: Hardness, Approximation, Fixed-Parameter Tractability Buchin, Kevin; Buchin, Maike; Byrka, Jaroslaw; N"ollenburg, Martin; Okamoto, Yoshio; Silveira, Rodrigo I.; Wolff, Alexander in Algorithmica (2012). 62(1--2) 309–332.
  • Drawing Graphs with Vertices at Specified Positions and Crossings at Large Angles Fink, Martin; Haunert, Jan-Henrik; Mchedlidze, Tamara; Spoerhase, Joachim; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. Workshop Algorithms Comput. (WALCOM’12), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, {Md. S. Rahman, {Shin- ichi} Nakano (eds.) (2012). (Vol. 7157) 186–197.
  • Schematization in Cartography, Visualization, and Computational Geometry Dykes, Jason; M{"u}ller-Hannemann, Matthias; Wolff, Alexander in Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings (2011). (Vol. 10461) Schloss Dagstuhl~-- Leibniz-Zentrum f{"u}r Informatik.
  • Drawing and Labeling High-Quality Metro Maps by Mixed-Integer Programming N{"o}llenburg, Martin; Wolff, Alexander in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2011). 17(5) 626–641.
  • Manhattan-Geodesic Embedding of Planar Graphs Katz, Bastian; Krug, Marcus; Rutter, Ignaz; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 17th Int. Sympos. Graph Drawing (GD’09), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, D. Eppstein, E. R. Gansner (eds.) (2010). (Vol. 5849) 207–218.
  • Untangling a Planar Graph Goaoc, Xavier; Kratochv{’i}l, Jan; Okamoto, Yoshio; Shin, Chan-Su; Spillner, Andreas; Wolff, Alexander in Discrete & Computational Geometry (2009). 42(4) 542–569.
  • Drawing Binary Tanglegrams: An Experimental Evaluation N{"o}llenburg, Martin; V{"o}lker, Markus; Wolff, Alexander; Holten, Danny in Proc. 11th Workshop Algorithm Engineering and Experiments (ALENEX’09) (2009). 106–119.
  • Cover Contact Graphs Atienza, Nieves; de Castro, Natalia; Cort\’{e}s, Carmen; Garrido, M. {’A}ngeles; Grima, Clara I.; Hern\’{a}ndez, Gregorio; M\’{a}rquez, Alberto; Moreno, Auxiliadora; N\"{o}llenburg, Martin; Portillo, Jos{’e} Ramon; Reyes, Pedro; Valenzuela, Jes\’{u}s; Villar, Maria Trinidad; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 15th Int. Sympos. Graph Drawing (GD’07), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, S.-H. Hong, T. Nishizeki, W. Quan (eds.) (2008). (Vol. 4875) 171–182.
  • Straightening Drawings of Clustered Hierarchical Graphs Bereg, Sergey; V{"o}lker, Markus; Wolff, Alexander; Zhang, Yuanyi in Proc. 33rd Int. Conf. Current Trends Theory & Practice Comput. Sci. (SOFSEM’07), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, J. van Leeuwen, G. F. Italiano, W. van der Hoek, C. Meinel, H. Sack, F. Plasil (eds.) (2007). (Vol. 4362) 177–186.
  • Minimizing Intra-Edge Crossings in Wiring Diagrams and Public Transport Maps Benkert, Marc; N{"o}llenburg, Martin; Uno, Takeaki; Wolff, Alexander in Proc. 14th Int. Sympos. Graph Drawing (GD’06), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, M. Kaufmann, D. Wagner (eds.) (2007). (Vol. 4372) 270–281.
  • Drawing Subway Maps: A Survey Wolff, Alexander in Informatik~-- Forschung & Entwicklung (2007). 22(1) 23–44.
  • Boundary Labeling: Models and Efficient Algorithms for Rectangular Maps Bekos, Michael A.; Kaufmann, Michael; Symvonis, Antonios; Wolff, Alexander in Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications (2007). 36(3) 215–236.
  • {Geometrische Netzwerke und ihre Visualisierung} Wolff, Alexander (2005, June).

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