Graph Drawing - Graphical Conventions

Graphical Conventions

Graphs are frequently drawn as node-link diagrams in which the vertices are represented as disks or boxes and the edges are represented as line segments, polylines, or curves in the Euclidean plane.

In the case of directed graphs, arrowheads form a commonly used graphical convention to show their orientation; however, user studies have shown that other conventions such as tapering provide this information more effectively.

Alternative conventions to node-link diagrams include adjacency representations such as circle packings, in which vertices are represented by disjoint regions in the plane and edges are represented by adjacencies between regions; intersection representations in which vertices are represented by non-disjoint geometric objects and edges are represented by their intersections; visibility representations in which vertices are represented by regions in the plane and edges are represented by regions that have an unobstructed line of sight to each other; confluent drawings, in which edges are represented as smooth curves within mathematical train tracks; and visualizations of the adjacency matrix of the graph.