Talk:Graph drawing

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External link: Pigale library includes the fastest implementation of the planarity testing and embedding algorithms (cf Stop minding your P’s and Q’s : implementing fast and simple DFS-based planarity and embedding algorithm, J.M. Boyer, P.F. Cortese, M. Patrignani, and G. Di Battista, in Graph Drawing, volume 2912 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004, pages 25–36). Is it sufficient for inclusion in the list? pom 22:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what the standards should be; I am more sure that the list should be short and annotated rather than long and undifferentiated. I only see 541 ghits for pigale (with "graph" thrown in to eliminate the chaff) vs 2.2 million for graphviz (or still 1M if you throw in "graph" to make it more a fair comparison), so it is clearly less notable but still somewhat notable. The question for me is, if we limited the number of links to say six, is Pigale really among the six most important graph drawing links on the web? —David Eppstein 23:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The two softwares are intrinsicaly differents in their goals: graphviz is application oriented although Pigale is an academic , research oriented software. You won't find a Fary drawing on a linear grid size or a visibility drawing in Graphviz. pom 00:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

May I rename this article to Graph layout(reversing the redirect)? I believe (but may be mistaken) that this is the common term for what is being described here. Rp 13:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

NO. There is an annual conference and several books with "Graph Drawing" in their title. Layout may be used in some contexts, but drawing is the proper title to use for this topic. —David Eppstein 16:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I notice (with Google) that "graph drawing" is indeed a popular term, but "graph layout" is about 4 times as popular. So it should at least be in the first sentence. Rp (talk) 18:39, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Try Google scholar. Graph drawing: 8000 hits. Graph layout: 4000 hits. More to the point, to me, "layout" describes only the vertex placement and edge routing parts of graph drawing, but not the visual appearance of the vertices, edges, and crossings, all of which would be included in graph drawing. On the other hand, graph layout is relevant in VLSI design, in which visual appearance is irrelevant. So they are two highly overlapping but distinct subjects. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense; so the article should probably make this distinction clear. Rp (talk) 19:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)