PARAMETRIC GRAPH DRAWING

A diagram is a drawing on the plane that represents a graph-like struc ture, where nodes are represented by symbols and edges are represented by curves connecting pairs of symbols. An automatic layout facility i s a tool that receives as input a graph-like structure and is able to produce a diagram that nicely represents such a structure. Many system s use diagrams in the interaction with the users; thus, automatic layo ut facilities and algorithms for graphs layout have been extensively s tudied in the last years. We present a new approach in designing an au tomatic layout facility. Our approach is based on a modular management of a large collection of algorithms and on a strategy that, given til e requirements of an application, selects a suitable algorithm for suc h requirements. The proposed approach has been used for designing the automatic layout facility of Diagram Server, a network server that off ers to its clients several facilities for managing diagrams.