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.
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