Deterministic Local Layouts Through High-Dimensional Layout Stitching

In this paper we present a layout technique for dynamic views of large static graphs. It aims to minimize changes between two consecutive frames and most importantly, it is deterministic. First, a set of small layout patches is pre-computed. Then, depending on the users view focus, a subset of these patches is selected and connected to generate the final layout. In contrast to the state-of-the-art approach that operates in the 2D screen space only, we perform this process in high-dimensional space before projecting the results into the 2D plane. This gives additional degrees of freedom and consequently a smoother transition process between two consecutive frames. Whenever the user visits an area of the graph for a second time, the layout will still look the same. This enables the user to recognize areas that have already been explored and thus preserve the mental map.