Crossings as a side effect of dependency lengths

The syntactic structure of sentences exhibits a striking regularity: dependencies tend to not cross when drawn above the sentence. We investigate two competing explanations. The traditional hypothesis is that this trend arises from an independent principle of syntax that reduces crossings practically to zero. An alternative to this view is the hypothesis that crossings are a side effect of dependency lengths, i.e. sentences with shorter dependency lengths should tend to have fewer crossings. We are able to reject the traditional view in the majority of languages considered. The alternative hypothesis can lead to a more parsimonious theory of language.Comment: the discussion section has been expanded significantly; in press in Complexity (Wiley

Exploring the relative importance of crossing number and crossing angle

Recent research has indicated that human graph reading performance can be affected by the size of crossing angle. Crossing angle is closely related to another aesthetic criterion: number of edge crossings. Although crossing number has been previously identified as the most important aesthetic, its relative impact on performance of human graph reading is unknown, compared to crossing angle. In this paper, we present an exploratory user study investigating the relative importance between crossing number and crossing angle. This study also aims to further examine the effects of crossing number and crossing angle not only on task performance measured as response time and accuracy, but also on cognitive load and visualization efficiency. The experimental results reinforce the previous findings of the effects of the two aesthetics on graph comprehension. The study demonstrates that on average these two closely related aesthetics together explain 33% of variance in the four usability measures: time, accuracy, mental effort and visualization efficiency, with about 38% of the explained variance being attributed to the crossing angle. Copyright © 2010 ACM

Evaluating Animation Parameters for Morphing Edge Drawings

Partial edge drawings (PED) of graphs avoid edge crossings by subdividing each edge into three parts and representing only its stubs, i.e., the parts incident to the end-nodes. The morphing edge drawing model (MED) extends the PED drawing style by animations that smoothly morph each edge between its representation as stubs and the one as a fully drawn segment while avoiding new crossings. Participants of a previous study on MED (Misue and Akasaka, GD19) reported eye straining caused by the animation. We conducted a user study to evaluate how this effect is influenced by varying animation speed and animation dynamic by considering an easing technique that is commonly used in web design. Our results provide indications that the easing technique may help users in executing topology-based tasks accurately. The participants also expressed appreciation for the easing and a preference for a slow animation speed.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 31st International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2023

Ordered Level Planarity, Geodesic Planarity and Bi-Monotonicity

We introduce and study the problem Ordered Level Planarity which asks for a planar drawing of a graph such that vertices are placed at prescribed positions in the plane and such that every edge is realized as a y-monotone curve. This can be interpreted as a variant of Level Planarity in which the vertices on each level appear in a prescribed total order. We establish a complexity dichotomy with respect to both the maximum degree and the level-width, that is, the maximum number of vertices that share a level. Our study of Ordered Level Planarity is motivated by connections to several other graph drawing problems. Geodesic Planarity asks for a planar drawing of a graph such that vertices are placed at prescribed positions in the plane and such that every edge is realized as a polygonal path composed of line segments with two adjacent directions from a given set $S$ of directions symmetric with respect to the origin. Our results on Ordered Level Planarity imply $NP$-hardness for any $S$ with $|S|\ge 4$ even if the given graph is a matching. Katz, Krug, Rutter and Wolff claimed that for matchings Manhattan Geodesic Planarity, the case where $S$ contains precisely the horizontal and vertical directions, can be solved in polynomial time [GD'09]. Our results imply that this is incorrect unless $P=NP$. Our reduction extends to settle the complexity of the Bi-Monotonicity problem, which was proposed by Fulek, Pelsmajer, Schaefer and \v{S}tefankovi\v{c}. Ordered Level Planarity turns out to be a special case of T-Level Planarity, Clustered Level Planarity and Constrained Level Planarity. Thus, our results strengthen previous hardness results. In particular, our reduction to Clustered Level Planarity generates instances with only two non-trivial clusters. This answers a question posed by Angelini, Da Lozzo, Di Battista, Frati and Roselli.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017

On Class Diagrams, Crossings and Metrics

As a standardized software engineering diagram, the UML class diagram provides various information on the static structure of views on software while design, implementation and maintenance phase. This talk gives an overview on drawing UML class diagrams in hierarchical fashion. Therefore, common elements of class diagrams are introduced and aesthetic rules for drawing UML class diagrams are given. These rules are based on four disciplines involved in the reading process of diagrams. After a brief introduction to our drawing algorithm, an extensive extension of the well-known Sugiyama algorithm, two details are highlighted: A new crossing reduction algorithm is presented and compared to existing ones and issues on measuring the quality of a layout are discussed

Scalability considerations for multivariate graph visualization

Real-world, multivariate datasets are frequently too large to show in their entirety on a visual display. Still, there are many techniques we can employ to show useful partial views-sufficient to support incremental exploration of large graph datasets. In this chapter, we first explore the cognitive and architectural limitations which restrict the amount of visual bandwidth available to multivariate graph visualization approaches. These limitations afford several design approaches, which we systematically explore. Finally, we survey systems and studies that exhibit these design strategies to mitigate these perceptual and architectural limitations

Weakly and Strongly Fan-Planar Graphs

We study two notions of fan-planarity introduced by (Cheong et al., GD22), called weak and strong fan-planarity that separate two non-equivalent definitions of fan-planarity in the literature. We prove that not every weakly fan-planar graph is strongly fan-planar, while the density upper bound for both families is the same.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 31st International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2023

Algorithms for visualization of graph-based structures

Buildings today are built to maintain a healthy indoor environment and an efficient energy usage which is probably why damages caused by dampness has increased since the 1960’s. A study between year 2008 and 2010 showed that 26 percent of the 110 000 examined houses had damages and flaws caused by dampness that could prove to be harmful later on. This means that one out of four bathrooms risk the chance to develop damages by dampness. Approximately 2 percent of the houses had already developed water damages. It is here where the problems appear. A house or a building that is damaged by water of dampness need time to dry out before any renovation can take place. This means that damaged parts must be removed and allowed to dry out, this takes a long time to do and the costs are high and at the same time it can cause inconvenience to the residents. Here is where the Air Gap Method enters the picture. The meaning with the method is to drain and dry out the moisture without the need to perform a larger renovation. The Air Gap Method is a so called "forgiving"-system that is if water damages occur the consequences will be small. The Air Gap method means that an air gap is created in the walls, ceiling and the floor where a heating cable in the gap heats up the air and creates an air movement. The point is to create a stack effect in the gap that with the help of the air movement transports the damp air through an opening by the ceiling. The aim of this thesis is to examine if it’s necessary with the heating cable in the air gap and if there is a specific drying out pattern of the water damaged bathroom floor. The possibility of mould growth will also be examined. The study showed that the damped floor did dry out even without a heating cable, but as one of the studies showed signs of mould growth it is shown that the risk for mould growth is higher without a heating cable. There was a seven days difference in the drying out time between the studies with and without the heating cable; this difference can be decisive for mould growth which is why the heating cable is recommended. The Air Gap method is quite easy to apply in houses with light frame constructions simply by using a smaller dimension on the studs to create the air gap in the floor and walls. The method can also be applied in apartment buildings with a concrete frame by using the room-in- room principal. When renovating existing bathrooms it’s easier to use prefabricated elements to create the air gap in the floor and walls. ~