Multi-Level Graph Layout on the GPU

  • Authors:
  • Yaniv Frishman;Ayellet Tal

  • Affiliations:
  • IEEE;IEEE Computer Society

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
  • Year:
  • 2007

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

This paper presents a new algorithm for force directed graph layout on the GPU. The algorithm, whose goal is to compute layouts accurately and quickly, has two contributions. The first contribution is proposing a general multi-level scheme, which is based on spectral partitioning. The second contribution is computing the layout on the GPU. Since the GPU requires a data parallel programming model, the challenge is devising a mapping of a naturally unstructured graph into a well-partitioned structured one. This is done by computing a balanced partitioning of a general graph. This algorithm provides a general multi-level scheme, which has the potential to be used not only for computation on the GPU, but also on emerging multi-core architectures. The algorithm manages to compute high quality layouts of large graphs in a fraction of the time required by existing algorithms of similar quality. An application for visualization of the topologies of ISP (Internet Service Provider) networks is presented.