A Visualization Framework and User Studies for Overloaded Orthogonal Drawings. (1st September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Didimo, Walter; Kornaropoulos, Evgenios M.; Montecchiani, Fabrizio; Tollis, Ioannis G.
• Is Part Of: Computer graphics forum. Volume 37:Number 1(2018)
• Page Start: 288
• Page End: 300
• Publication Date: 2017-09-01
• Subjects: user studies -- interaction -- information visualization -- visualization -- human–computer interfaces -- interaction -- H.5.2 [INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS]: User Interfaces Graphical user interfaces (GUI); I.3.5 [COMPUTER GRAPHICS]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling Geometric algorithms -- languages -- and systems; G.2.2 [DISCRETE MATHEMATICS]: Graph Theory Graph algorithms; Computer graphics -- Periodicals; 006.605
• DOI: 10.1111/cgf.13266
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0167-7055

Abstract

Abstract: Overloaded orthogonal drawing (OOD) is a recent graph visualization style specifically conceived for directed graphs. It merges the advantages of some popular drawing conventions like layered drawings and orthogonal drawings, and provides additional support for some common analysis tasks. We present a visualization framework called DAGView, which implements algorithms and graphical features for the OOD style. Besides the algorithm for acyclic digraphs, the DAGView framework implements extensions to visualize both digraphs with cycles and undirected graphs, with the additional possibility of taking into account user preferences and constraints. It also supports an interactive visualization of clustered digraphs, based on the use of strongly connected components. Moreover, we describe an experimental user study, aimed to investigate the usability of OOD within the DAGView framework. The results of our study suggest that OOD can be effectively exploited to perform some basic tasks of analysis in a faster and more accurate way when compared to other drawing styles for directed graphs. Abstract : Overloaded orthogonal drawing (OOD) is a recent graph visualization style specifically conceived for directed graphs. It merges the advantages of some popular drawing conventions like layered drawings and orthogonal drawings, and provides additional support for some common analysis tasks. We present a visualization framework called DAGView, which implements algorithms and graphical features for the OOD style. Besides the algorithm for acyclic digraphs, the DAGView framework implements extensions to visualize both digraphs with cycles and undirected graphs, with the additional possibility of taking into account user preferences and constraints.