Balci Hasan, Luna Augustin
National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA.
ArXiv. 2025 Jun 18:arXiv:2506.15860v1.
Visual analysis of relational data is essential for many real-world analytics tasks, with layout quality being key to interpretability. However, existing layout algorithms often require users to navigate complex parameters to express their intent. We present a user-guided force-directed layout approach that enables intuitive control through freehand sketching. Our method uses classical image analysis techniques to extract structural information from sketches, which is then used to generate positional constraints that guide the layout process. We evaluate the approach on various real and synthetic graphs ranging from small to medium scale, demonstrating its ability to produce layouts aligned with user expectations. An implementation of our method along with documentation and a demo page is freely available on GitHub at https://github.com/sciluna/uggly.
关系数据的可视化分析对于许多实际分析任务至关重要，布局质量是可解释性的关键。然而，现有的布局算法通常要求用户调整复杂的参数来表达他们的意图。我们提出了一种用户引导的力导向布局方法，通过徒手绘制草图实现直观控制。我们的方法使用经典图像分析技术从草图中提取结构信息，然后将其用于生成指导布局过程的位置约束。我们在从小规模到中等规模的各种真实和合成图上评估了该方法，证明了其生成符合用户期望的布局的能力。我们方法的实现以及文档和演示页面可在GitHub上免费获取，网址为https://github.com/sciluna/uggly。
