Features
Often provides a drawing without any or with only a few link crossings and with equal length links
for small- and medium-size graphs having few cycles. The maximum
number of nodes for which you can use the algorithm depends on
the connectivity of the graph and is difficult to predict.
On demand, the algorithm can take into
account the size (width and height) of the nodes. Otherwise, they
are more efficiently considered as points.
It is possible to specify the length for
each link individually.
The algorithm provides three optional layout modes: incremental,
nonincremental, and fast multilevel. The nonincremental and fast
multilevel modes are in general faster and are recommended for
large graphs. For details, see Layout mode .
Limitations
- The algorithm is not appropriate for all graphs. In particular, it produces bad results on some highly connected cyclic graphs for which a planar drawing with equal-length links might not exist.
- The computation time required to obtain an appropriate drawing grows relatively quickly with the size of the graph (that is, the number of nodes and links) and the layout process can become time-consuming for large graphs.
- Overlapping nodes cannot always be avoided. Nevertheless, the layout algorithm often produces a drawing with no overlapping nodes.