graph drawing - from sql queries to Visio readable file(.vdx)

Question

I am working on building a website which queries a sql server database and gets tables which contain information about node connections. As in, column 1 has children columns2 and 3 etc...

I am writing this using MVC framework and ASP.NET and C#. I wanted to know how I can go about converting the queried data to graphs, which can then be sent to the user as a Visio readable(.vdx) file. The graphs should only contain bubbles and connections.

I have dug up and found this link: http://blogs.msdn.com/saveenr/archive/2009/09/30/creating-a-visio-vdx-file-without-using-visio.aspx

which programs visio without using the software at all. But, its still not clear how i'd draw graphs using this. There has to be a library(like graphviz) for generating the connections between nodes, right?

Thanks :)

Answer 1

I'm the one who wrote the blog post you linked to.

There are several libraries you can use. Personally I've been using MSAGL but that is closed source (it can be licensed). One alternative for you could be Graph# (find it on codeplex).

Graph# has a nice video tutorial on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTbuvkaPGxE that should explain how to generate the connections between the nodes. Once you know what the rest should just be a matter of drawing the output.