A physics-based approach for interactive manipulation of graph visualizations

  • Authors:

  • Andre Suslik Spritzer;Carla M. D. S. Freitas

  • Affiliations:

  • Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil;Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

  • Venue:
  • AVI '08 Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

This paper presents an interactive physics-based technique for the exploration and dynamic reorganization of graph layouts that takes into account semantic properties which the user might need to emphasize. Many techniques have been proposed that take a graph as input and produce a visualization solely based on its topology, seldom ever relying on the semantic attributes of nodes and edges. These automatic topology-based algorithms might generate aesthetically interesting layouts, but they neglect information that might be important for the user. Among these are the force-directed or energy minimization algorithms, which use physics analogies to produce satisfactory layouts. They consist of applying forces on the nodes, which move until the physical system enters a state of mechanical equilibrium. We propose an extension of this metaphor to include tools for the interactive manipulation of such layouts. These tools are comprised of magnets, which attract nodes with user-specified criteria to the regions surrounding the magnets. Magnets can be nested and also used to intuitively perform set operations such as union and intersection, becoming thus an intuitive visual tool for sorting through the datasets. To evaluate the technique we discuss how they can be used to perform common graph visualization tasks.