Spring Embedders and Force Directed Graph Drawing Algorithms

TL;DR

This survey reviews classical and modern force-directed graph drawing algorithms, highlighting their principles, advantages, and scalability for producing aesthetically pleasing graph layouts without domain-specific knowledge.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of force-directed algorithms, from classical methods like Tutte's to recent scalable multiscale approaches for large and dynamic graphs.

Findings

Force-directed algorithms produce aesthetically pleasing layouts.

They can generate crossing-free layouts for planar graphs.

Recent methods improve scalability for large graphs.

Abstract

Force-directed algorithms are among the most flexible methods for calculating layouts of simple undirected graphs. Also known as spring embedders, such algorithms calculate the layout of a graph using only information contained within the structure of the graph itself, rather than relying on domain-specific knowledge. Graphs drawn with these algorithms tend to be aesthetically pleasing, exhibit symmetries, and tend to produce crossing-free layouts for planar graphs. In this survey we consider several classical algorithms, starting from Tutte's 1963 barycentric method, and including recent scalable multiscale methods for large and dynamic graphs.