Graph Drawing - Quality Measures

Quality Measures

Many different quality measures have been defined for graph drawings, in an attempt to find objective means of evaluating their aesthetics and usability. In addition to guiding the choice between different layout methods for the same graph, some layout methods attempt to directly optimize these measures.

• The crossing number of a drawing is the number of pairs of edges that cross each other. If the graph is planar, then it is often convenient to draw it without any edge intersections; that is, in this case, a graph drawing represents a graph embedding. However, nonplanar graphs frequently arise in applications, so graph drawing algorithms must generally allow for edge crossings.
• The area of a drawing is the size of its smallest bounding box, relative to the closest distance between any two vertices. Drawings with smaller area are generally preferable to those with larger area, because they allow the features of the drawing to be shown at greater size and therefore more legibly. The aspect ratio of the bounding box may also be important.
• Symmetry display is the problem of finding symmetry groups within a given graph, and finding a drawing that displays as much of the symmetry as possible. Some layout methods automatically lead to symmetric drawings; alternatively, some drawing methods start by finding symmetries in the input graph and using them to construct a drawing.
• It is important that edges have shapes that are as simple as possible, to make it easier for the eye to follow them. In polyline drawings, the complexity of an edge may be measured by its number of bends, and many methods aim to provide drawings with few total bends or few bends per edge. Similarly for spline curves the complexity of an edge may be measured by the number of control points on the edge.
• Several commonly used quality measures concern lengths of edges: it is generally desirable to minimize the total length of the edges as well as the maximum length of any edge. Additionally, it may be preferable for the lengths of edges to be uniform rather than highly varied.
• Angular resolution is a measure of the sharpest angles in a graph drawing. If a graph has vertices with high degree then it necessarily will have small angular resolution, but the angular resolution can be bounded below by a function of the degree.
• The slope number of a graph is the minimum number of distinct edge slopes needed in a drawing with straight line segment edges (allowing crossings). Cubic graphs have slope number at most four, but graphs of degree five may have unbounded slope number; it remains open whether the slope number of degree-4 graphs is bounded.