Is there a good digraph layout library callable from C++?

+1 A:

I was dealing with a similar problem earlier this year. One important input parameter for a decision however is the expected number of nodes.

I decided to use the Browser as the GUI and therefore looked for nice Javascript libraries, one i came across was wireit, it is very well suited for technical layouts (and also editing with drag and drop and "on the fly" layouting). You could easily connect that to your c++ by running a small webserver in a thread (You will need some kind of eventloop/thread thingie for GUI anyways).

Well just my 2 cents.

snies 2010-03-29 11:15:33

This is more thought-provoking than practical. Requiring a webserver is *not* an option, but using an HTML control with Javascript support may not be, and there' also the option of embedding a Javascript engine or simply translating the code. +1 again.

Steve314 2010-03-29 17:10:46

Well, i think that embedding a webserver is easier than embedding a Javascript engine (http://code.google.com/p/mongoos/wiki/EmbeddingMongoose). Especially with factoring out every graphics related stuff to the Browser you save a lot of dependencies. But also i won't hide from you that javascript has it's own quirks. But i think GUI development in javascipt+jQuery UI (or some other lib) is easier (and more maintainable) -- THNX for the +1

snies 2010-03-29 18:40:06

One more comment: When using (X)HTML and JavaScript currently you have no solution for "free-drawing" supported on all mayor Browsers. If you on the other hand are happy with using Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera (all but IE) you could use SVG. Graphviz can directly produce SVG output (or easy translate), which you than could control and animate via javascript directly. Thereby you might reuse some of your current setup. (http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/ also allows for svg support in IE)

snies 2010-03-29 18:57:17

I may be misunderstanding, but I assume an embedded server in my app means my app is messing around with networking stuff, even if just on localhost. That means firewall issues, among other things. It's one of those things that in my mind fits in the category of "I don't own other peoples machines just because they run my program, so I have no right to dictate how it is configured etc". For the record, I have thrown out software *precisely* because, despite having no good reason to need network access, it required me to install a loopback device and change my firewall.

Steve314 2010-03-30 02:23:45

+1 A:

OGDF is under the GPL.

Pigale is also under the GPL.

GoVisual is commercial software, but it looks like it starts at $1800 for one developer.

Ken Bloom 2010-03-29 14:40:33

Awkward for commercial use, but +1 as probably not impossible (e.g. separate the GPL code into a dynamically linked binary, separate from closed code).

Steve314 2010-03-29 17:05:17

Separating GPL code into a dynamically linked binary doesn't help. The whole thing is still a derived work of the GPL code.

Ken Bloom 2010-03-29 17:27:38

Really - so if I use GPL code to write a Photoshop plugin, the whole of Photoshop suddenly becomes a derived work of the GPL code? Adobe really won't be very happy about that! Or is it that Adobe isn't allowed to use GPL code in an open-source Photoshop plugin, but I am?

Steve314 2010-03-30 02:13:51

@Steve314 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

Ken Bloom 2010-04-01 04:40:34

That's as clear as mud. E.g. what about that Photoshop plugin using GPL code. There's calls both ways and data structure sharing, but that makes my plugin a part of Photoshop? Clearly not. That part of the FAQ talks about exemptions to the license *for* *the* *plugin*, so even GNU are clearly aware, deep down, that it is separate from the host app. And don't forget - every app is just an operating system plugin, with calls made both ways and data structures being shared with the host program - that doesn't make every GPL app "a part of" Windows or whatever.

Steve314 2010-04-01 22:38:36

Still - I take the point. Clearly I cannot take the risk of using a GPL library - I cannot guarantee that I can sell my own code safely if I do so, if I decide to go that route. You keep the +1 - because GoVisual may be an option, though the price is steep for something that I may never make money from myself, and I'd be paying for stuff I don't want along with the stuff I do.

Steve314 2010-04-01 22:44:02

+1 A:

Hmm, GDToolkit (or GDT) looks okay: many of the images in the tutorial look pretty nice, and it doesn't look like it's terribly complicated to use.

Edit: But checking the license, it looks like it's commercial software :-(. Whoops!

SamB 2010-03-29 16:54:44

Commercial may be better than GPL, depending on cost, so +1 again.

Steve314 2010-03-29 17:07:07

A:

Although the answers so far were worth an upvote, I can't really accept any of them. I've still been searching, though.

One thing I found is AGLO. The code is GPL v1, but there are papers that describe the algorithms, so it should be easy enough to re-implement from scratch if necessary.

There's also the paper by Gansner, Koutsofios, North and Vo - "A Technique for Drawing Directed Graphs" - available from here on the Graphviz site.

I've also been looking closely at the BSD-licensed (but Java) JGraph.

One way or the other, it looks like I might be re-implementing the wheel, if not actually re-inventing it.

Steve314 2010-03-31 23:40:12

People aren't always so motivated to write a BSD replacement for a GPL library, unless there's a **really** large market niche for the library in the first place.

Ken Bloom 2010-04-01 04:42:34

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Is there a good digraph layout library callable from C++?

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