More Flexible Radial Layout

Abstract

We describe an algorithm for radial layout of undirected graphs, in which nodes are constrained to concentric circles centered at the origin. Such constraints are typical, e.g., in the layout of social networks, when structural centrality is mapped to geometric centrality or when the primary intention of the layout is the display of the vicinity of a distinguished node. Our approach is based on an extension of stress minimization with a weighting scheme that gradually imposes radial constraints on the intermediate layout during the majorization process, and thus is an attempt to preserve as much information about the graph structure as possible.