From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2010-12-18 22:21:47
|
Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? The report generator in Gramps does a pretty good job of optimising the layout of large charts, and the sub-graph option can sometimes improve things. However, for some of my charts, the layout could be improved quite a bit by just reordering some nodes. A graphical tool for this would be great - is there such a thing? (There are several different graphviz viewers, but I'm after a layout editor.) Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the layout by editing the .gv text file. Is there a description of how to do this anywhere? From trying some example charts, there doesn't seem to be a consistent correlation between the sequence of the text file and the layout on the chart, so perhaps I'm missing something here. TIA Peter |
From: Peter H. <pe...@he...> - 2010-12-18 22:22:00
|
Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? The report generator in Gramps does a pretty good job of optimising the layout of large charts, and the sub-graph option can sometimes improve things. However, for some of my charts, the layout could be improved quite a bit by just reordering some nodes. A graphical tool for this would be great - is there such a thing? (There are several different graphviz viewers, but I'm after a layout editor.) Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the layout by editing the .gv text file. Is there a description of how to do this anywhere? From trying some example charts, there doesn't seem to be a consistent correlation between the sequence of the text file and the layout on the chart, so perhaps I'm missing something here. TIA Peter |
From: jerome <rom...@ya...> - 2010-12-19 08:23:07
|
Hi, > Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the layout by > editing the .gv text > file. Is there a description of how to do this > anywhere? From trying some > example charts, there doesn't seem to be a consistent > correlation between the > sequence of the text file and the layout on the chart, so > perhaps I'm missing > something here. There is a simple sample for generating the graph by using the Graphviz command line tool: http://www.gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Howto:_Make_a_relationship_chart#Example_3.2C_Generating_the_graph_by_using_the_Graphviz_command_line_tool For extra info: http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation.php > Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? * KGraphViewer http://extragear.kde.org/apps/kgraphviewer/ * Dotty, tcldot, WebDot, Grappa, ZGRViewer, ZGRViewer, etc ... see 'Viewers' on http://www.graphviz.org page Jérôme --- En date de : Sam 18.12.10, Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> a écrit : > De: Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> > Objet: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > À: "Gramps Users List" <gra...@li...> > Date: Samedi 18 décembre 2010, 22h57 > > Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? > > The report generator in Gramps does a pretty good job of > optimising the layout > of large charts, and the sub-graph option can sometimes > improve things. > However, for some of my charts, the layout could be > improved quite a bit by > just reordering some nodes. A graphical tool for this > would be great - is > there such a thing? (There are several different > graphviz viewers, but I'm > after a layout editor.) > > Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the layout by > editing the .gv text > file. Is there a description of how to do this > anywhere? From trying some > example charts, there doesn't seem to be a consistent > correlation between the > sequence of the text file and the layout on the chart, so > perhaps I'm missing > something here. > > TIA > > Peter > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Lotusphere 2011 > Register now for Lotusphere 2011 and learn how > to connect the dots, take your collaborative environment > to the next level, and enter the era of Social Business. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/lotusphere-d2d > _______________________________________________ > Gramps-users mailing list > Gra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > |
From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2010-12-19 09:56:46
|
On Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:22:59 jerome wrote: > Hi, > > > Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the layout by > > editing the .gv text > > file. Is there a description of how to do this > > anywhere? From trying some > > example charts, there doesn't seem to be a consistent > > correlation between the > > sequence of the text file and the layout on the chart, so > > perhaps I'm missing something here. > > There is a simple sample for generating the graph by using the Graphviz > command line tool: > http://www.gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Howto:_Make_a_relations > hip_chart#Example_3.2C_Generating_the_graph_by_using_the_Graphviz_command_l > ine_tool > > For extra info: > http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation.php > > > Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? > > * KGraphViewer > http://extragear.kde.org/apps/kgraphviewer/ > > * Dotty, tcldot, WebDot, Grappa, ZGRViewer, ZGRViewer, etc ... > see 'Viewers' on http://www.graphviz.org page Thanks for your reply. There are plenty of viewers, but I was after a GUI editor. Dotty seems to be the closest to this, as it is possible to move boxes around on the chart (if you have numlock off), but it doesn't seem to save the changed layout. (At least, when I save a modified chart, then open the saved file, the changes are lost.) Maybe there isn't any software to do this. cheers Peter > --- En date de : Sam 18.12.10, Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> a écrit : > > De: Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> > > Objet: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > > À: "Gramps Users List" <gra...@li...> > > Date: Samedi 18 décembre 2010, 22h57 > > > > Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? > > > > The report generator in Gramps does a pretty good job of > > optimising the layout > > of large charts, and the sub-graph option can sometimes > > improve things. > > However, for some of my charts, the layout could be > > improved quite a bit by > > just reordering some nodes. A graphical tool for this > > would be great - is > > there such a thing? (There are several different > > graphviz viewers, but I'm > > after a layout editor.) > > > > Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the layout by > > editing the .gv text > > file. Is there a description of how to do this > > anywhere? From trying some > > example charts, there doesn't seem to be a consistent > > correlation between the > > sequence of the text file and the layout on the chart, so > > perhaps I'm missing something here. > > > > TIA > > > > Peter > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ----- Lotusphere 2011 > > Register now for Lotusphere 2011 and learn how > > to connect the dots, take your collaborative environment > > to the next level, and enter the era of Social Business. > > http://p.sf.net/sfu/lotusphere-d2d > > _______________________________________________ > > Gramps-users mailing list > > Gra...@li... > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users |
From: jerome <rom...@ya...> - 2010-12-19 10:10:07
|
> There are plenty of viewers, but I was after a GUI editor. > Dotty seems to be the closest to this, as it is possible to > move boxes around > on the chart (if you have numlock off), but it doesn't seem > to save the changed > layout. (At least, when I save a modified chart, then > open the saved file, the > changes are lost.) OK sorry, I have used Dotty or KgraphViewer some years ago and had just quickly read features [1], but did not test them or ability to edit. [1] https://projects.kde.org/projects/extragear/graphics/kgraphviewer/repository/revisions/master/entry/README --- En date de : Dim 19.12.10, Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> a écrit : > De: Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> > Objet: Re: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > À: "Gramps Users List" <gra...@li...> > Date: Dimanche 19 décembre 2010, 10h32 > On Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:22:59 jerome > wrote: > > Hi, > > > > > Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the > layout by > > > editing the .gv text > > > file. Is there a description of how to do > this > > > anywhere? From trying some > > > example charts, there doesn't seem to be a > consistent > > > correlation between the > > > sequence of the text file and the layout on the > chart, so > > > perhaps I'm missing something here. > > > > There is a simple sample for generating the graph by > using the Graphviz > > command line tool: > > http://www.gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Howto:_Make_a_relations > > > hip_chart#Example_3.2C_Generating_the_graph_by_using_the_Graphviz_command_l > > ine_tool > > > > For extra info: > > http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation.php > > > > > Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? > > > > * KGraphViewer > > http://extragear.kde.org/apps/kgraphviewer/ > > > > * Dotty, tcldot, WebDot, Grappa, ZGRViewer, ZGRViewer, > etc ... > > see 'Viewers' on http://www.graphviz.org page > > Thanks for your reply. > > There are plenty of viewers, but I was after a GUI editor. > Dotty seems to be the closest to this, as it is possible to > move boxes around > on the chart (if you have numlock off), but it doesn't seem > to save the changed > layout. (At least, when I save a modified chart, then > open the saved file, the > changes are lost.) > > Maybe there isn't any software to do this. > > cheers > > Peter > > > --- En date de : Sam 18.12.10, Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> > a écrit : > > > De: Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> > > > Objet: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > > > À: "Gramps Users List" <gra...@li...> > > > Date: Samedi 18 décembre 2010, 22h57 > > > > > > Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? > > > > > > The report generator in Gramps does a pretty good > job of > > > optimising the layout > > > of large charts, and the sub-graph option can > sometimes > > > improve things. > > > However, for some of my charts, the layout could > be > > > improved quite a bit by > > > just reordering some nodes. A graphical > tool for this > > > would be great - is > > > there such a thing? (There are several > different > > > graphviz viewers, but I'm > > > after a layout editor.) > > > > > > Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the > layout by > > > editing the .gv text > > > file. Is there a description of how to do > this > > > anywhere? From trying some > > > example charts, there doesn't seem to be a > consistent > > > correlation between the > > > sequence of the text file and the layout on the > chart, so > > > perhaps I'm missing something here. > > > > > > TIA > > > > > > Peter > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- Lotusphere 2011 > > > Register now for Lotusphere 2011 and learn how > > > to connect the dots, take your collaborative > environment > > > to the next level, and enter the era of Social > Business. > > > http://p.sf.net/sfu/lotusphere-d2d > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Gramps-users mailing list > > > Gra...@li... > > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Lotusphere 2011 > Register now for Lotusphere 2011 and learn how > to connect the dots, take your collaborative environment > to the next level, and enter the era of Social Business. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/lotusphere-d2d > _______________________________________________ > Gramps-users mailing list > Gra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > |
From: Gary B. <bur...@ya...> - 2010-12-19 13:36:19
|
Hello Peter, One option you could try is to produce your Graphviz charts in SVG format and use an SVG editor such as Inkscape to tweak them. Bye Gary ----- Original Message ---- > From: Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> > To: Gramps Users List <gra...@li...> > Sent: Sat, 18 December, 2010 21:57:36 > Subject: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > > > Is there a GUI editor for graphviz charts? > > The report generator in Gramps does a pretty good job of optimising the layout > > of large charts, and the sub-graph option can sometimes improve things. > However, for some of my charts, the layout could be improved quite a bit by > just reordering some nodes. A graphical tool for this would be great - is > there such a thing? (There are several different graphviz viewers, but I'm > after a layout editor.) > > Apparently, it is possible to rearrange the layout by editing the .gv text > file. Is there a description of how to do this anywhere? From trying some > example charts, there doesn't seem to be a consistent correlation between the > sequence of the text file and the layout on the chart, so perhaps I'm missing > something here. > > TIA > > Peter > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Lotusphere 2011 > Register now for Lotusphere 2011 and learn how > to connect the dots, take your collaborative environment > to the next level, and enter the era of Social Business. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/lotusphere-d2d > _______________________________________________ > Gramps-users mailing list > Gra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > |
From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2010-12-19 18:23:00
|
On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 02:30:11 Gary Burton wrote: > Hello Peter, > > One option you could try is to produce your Graphviz charts in SVG format > and use an SVG editor such as Inkscape to tweak them. Thanks I'll give that a try. |
From: Stéphane C. <ste...@gm...> - 2010-12-19 19:07:26
|
But then the very next time you make changes to your database and re-generate the graph, you'll be back where you started. The only true viable option you have is to find some command-line parameters to 'dot' to alter the behaviour of the layout engine, or else to find a settings in the .gv file to tweak which makes 'dot' layout the graph differently. What exactly are you trying to do? Stéphane On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 05:30, Gary Burton <bur...@ya...> wrote: > Hello Peter, > > One option you could try is to produce your Graphviz charts in SVG format > and > use an SVG editor such as Inkscape to tweak them. > > Bye > > Gary > > |
From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2010-12-20 07:30:41
|
On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 08:07:19 Stéphane Charette wrote: > But then the very next time you make changes to your database and > re-generate the graph, you'll be back where you started. > > The only true viable option you have is to find some command-line > parameters to 'dot' to alter the behaviour of the layout engine, or else > to find a settings in the .gv file to tweak which makes 'dot' layout the > graph differently. > > What exactly are you trying to do? The chart is basically ok, but there are some lines crossed, which makes it hard to follow ancestory lines. Turning subgraphs on sometimes improves things, sometimes not. What I'd like to do is reorder the items, which would untangle the lines. In some cases, it might not be possible to completely avoid crossed lines, but in the cases I'm looking at, they could be made much better. http://www.hewett.co.nz/images/chartwithoutsubgraph.png http://www.hewett.co.nz/images/chartwithsubgraph.png When I looked at the graphviz docs, the attributes seemed to be for colours, fonts, arrowhead style, etc. I'll look further to see if I can find ways to adjust the layout engine. TIA Peter > On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 05:30, Gary Burton <bur...@ya...> wrote: > > Hello Peter, > > > > One option you could try is to produce your Graphviz charts in SVG format > > and use an SVG editor such as Inkscape to tweak them. > > > > Bye > > > > Gary |
From: Stéphane C. <ste...@gm...> - 2010-12-20 09:55:47
|
There are options you can use to tell graphviz (dot) to think about it harder to uncross lines. And in verbose mode, it will print out the number of crosses and you can see it work down to (nearly) zero if you're lucky. In Gramps, choose to generate a .gv file as the output. Then, edit the .gv file with a text editor. Now I haven't done this in a few years, but from what I remember some of the things that have an effect were: - group <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:group> (?) - mclimit <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:mclimit> - searchsize <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:searchsize> The other settings I recently discovered which I'd like to try out with Gramps to see what happens is constraint<http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:constraint>. How would dot lay out all the nodes if every edge was marked as constraint=false? Looking at the dot --help output right now, I'd also be interested in looking up additional help on the -n[v] parameter, the -x parameter, maybe -Lg, and definitely -ln<i>. And like I said above, I recall that when using -v to enable verbose mode, it prints out a message every second or so to say how many lines have crossed, and possibly how much longer it will keep looking for further optimizations. Stéphane On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 23:30, Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> wrote: > On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 08:07:19 Stéphane Charette wrote: > > But then the very next time you make changes to your database and > > re-generate the graph, you'll be back where you started. > > > > The only true viable option you have is to find some command-line > > parameters to 'dot' to alter the behaviour of the layout engine, or else > > to find a settings in the .gv file to tweak which makes 'dot' layout the > > graph differently. > > > > What exactly are you trying to do? > > The chart is basically ok, but there are some lines crossed, which makes it > hard to follow ancestory lines. Turning subgraphs on sometimes improves > things, sometimes not. > > What I'd like to do is reorder the items, which would untangle the lines. > In > some cases, it might not be possible to completely avoid crossed lines, but > in > the cases I'm looking at, they could be made much better. > http://www.hewett.co.nz/images/chartwithoutsubgraph.png > http://www.hewett.co.nz/images/chartwithsubgraph.png > > When I looked at the graphviz docs, the attributes seemed to be for > colours, > fonts, arrowhead style, etc. I'll look further to see if I can find ways > to > adjust the layout engine. > > TIA > > Peter > > > > > On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 05:30, Gary Burton <bur...@ya...> > wrote: > > > Hello Peter, > > > > > > One option you could try is to produce your Graphviz charts in SVG > format > > > and use an SVG editor such as Inkscape to tweak them. > > > > > > Bye > > > > > > Gary > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Lotusphere 2011 > Register now for Lotusphere 2011 and learn how > to connect the dots, take your collaborative environment > to the next level, and enter the era of Social Business. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/lotusphere-d2d > _______________________________________________ > Gramps-users mailing list > Gra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > |
From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2010-12-21 08:25:41
|
thanks Stéphane, those hints were relevant and I now know that what I am after is minimising crossings, and that this is done within dot. Unfortunately, the various dot options don't seem to have improved things. My chart has 17 crossings for 494 nodes. The -v option is great for showing a bit more of what is happening. I am using dot 2.26.3 on Kubuntu 10.10. group - can't see how to use this mclimit - takes longer but no improvement searchsize - no change -Econstraint=false - used in command line, this puts all nodes in one vertical line (ie trashes the diagram) -n<i> - no change -x - no change -Lg - no change -ln<i> - no change Reordering the lines in the .gv text file changes the results, sometimes improving and sometimes making things worse (more crossings). I managed to get the result down to 12 crossings, but this approach is very hit and miss. There doesn't seem to be any logic to how to improve order of the text lines to get the best result. Perhaps the answer is to improve how dot optimises the layout to minimise crossings, but I'm not sure how to do this. I'll keep exploring. regards Peter On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 22:55:38 Stéphane Charette wrote: > There are options you can use to tell graphviz (dot) to think about it > harder to uncross lines. And in verbose mode, it will print out the number > of crosses and you can see it work down to (nearly) zero if you're lucky. > In Gramps, choose to generate a .gv file as the output. > > Then, edit the .gv file with a text editor. Now I haven't done this in a > few years, but from what I remember some of the things that have an effect > were: > - group <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:group> (?) > - mclimit <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:mclimit> > - searchsize <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:searchsize> > > > The other settings I recently discovered which I'd like to try out with > Gramps to see what happens is > constraint<http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:constraint>. > How would dot lay out all the nodes if every edge was marked as > constraint=false? > > Looking at the dot --help output right now, I'd also be interested in > looking up additional help on the -n[v] parameter, the -x parameter, maybe > -Lg, and definitely -ln<i>. And like I said above, I recall that when > using -v to enable verbose mode, it prints out a message every second or > so to say how many lines have crossed, and possibly how much longer it > will keep looking for further optimizations. > > Stéphane > |
From: Stéphane C. <ste...@gm...> - 2010-12-21 09:50:43
|
Also note that 'dot' is one of a half-dozen layout engines. There are other ones, such as 'neato', and ...? I forget the other names, but you'll find them on the graphviz site. Neato has a lot of potential for us. I tried playing with it for about an hour the other night when I replied to your other e-mail, but I don't have time to figure out the details. It works by laying out the graph, ...well...an example is worth 1000 words: (warning, 7mb file) http://charette.no-ip.com:1234/Charette/dot.png (warning, 2mb file) http://charette.no-ip.com:1234/Charette/neato.png So while 'dot' is very grid-like in nature, 'neato' feels much more fluid. But in the short time I looked into it the other night, I couldn't figure out what needs to change in the .gv file to fix the node spacing. Anyway, all this to say we're barely scratching the surface when it comes to GraphViz. If anyone wanted to spend some time going through the GraphViz docs and trying things out with their genealogy graphs, I'm sure we could incorporate suggestions easily into Gramps. Stéphane On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 00:25, Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> wrote: > > thanks Stéphane, those hints were relevant and I now know that what I am > after > is minimising crossings, and that this is done within dot. > > Unfortunately, the various dot options don't seem to have improved things. > My > chart has 17 crossings for 494 nodes. The -v option is great for showing a > bit more of what is happening. I am using dot 2.26.3 on Kubuntu 10.10. > > group - can't see how to use this > mclimit - takes longer but no improvement > searchsize - no change > -Econstraint=false - used in command line, this puts all nodes in one > vertical line (ie trashes the diagram) > -n<i> - no change > -x - no change > -Lg - no change > -ln<i> - no change > > Reordering the lines in the .gv text file changes the results, sometimes > improving and sometimes making things worse (more crossings). I managed to > get the result down to 12 crossings, but this approach is very hit and > miss. > There doesn't seem to be any logic to how to improve order of the text > lines > to get the best result. > > Perhaps the answer is to improve how dot optimises the layout to minimise > crossings, but I'm not sure how to do this. > > I'll keep exploring. > > regards > > Peter > > > On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 22:55:38 Stéphane Charette wrote: > > There are options you can use to tell graphviz (dot) to think about it > > harder to uncross lines. And in verbose mode, it will print out the > number > > of crosses and you can see it work down to (nearly) zero if you're lucky. > > In Gramps, choose to generate a .gv file as the output. > > > > Then, edit the .gv file with a text editor. Now I haven't done this in a > > few years, but from what I remember some of the things that have an > effect > > were: > > - group <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:group> (?) > > - mclimit <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:mclimit> > > - searchsize < > http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:searchsize> > > > > > > The other settings I recently discovered which I'd like to try out with > > Gramps to see what happens is > > constraint<http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:constraint>. > > How would dot lay out all the nodes if every edge was marked as > > constraint=false? > > > > Looking at the dot --help output right now, I'd also be interested in > > looking up additional help on the -n[v] parameter, the -x parameter, > maybe > > -Lg, and definitely -ln<i>. And like I said above, I recall that when > > using -v to enable verbose mode, it prints out a message every second or > > so to say how many lines have crossed, and possibly how much longer it > > will keep looking for further optimizations. > > > > Stéphane > > > > |
From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2010-12-21 18:03:48
|
On Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:50:35 Stéphane Charette wrote: > Also note that 'dot' is one of a half-dozen layout engines. There are > other ones, such as 'neato', and ...? I forget the other names, but > you'll find them on the graphviz site. > > Neato has a lot of potential for us. I tried playing with it for about an > hour the other night when I replied to your other e-mail, but I don't have > time to figure out the details. It works by laying out the graph, > ...well...an example is worth 1000 words: > > (warning, 7mb file) > http://charette.no-ip.com:1234/Charette/dot.png > > (warning, 2mb file) > http://charette.no-ip.com:1234/Charette/neato.png I tried neato and got very similar results, with nodes overlapping badly. With options, it is possible to separate them, but the separation is too great, giving small nodes and long lines (edges) between them. > So while 'dot' is very grid-like in nature, 'neato' feels much more fluid. > But in the short time I looked into it the other night, I couldn't figure > out what needs to change in the .gv file to fix the node spacing. > > Anyway, all this to say we're barely scratching the surface when it comes > to GraphViz. If anyone wanted to spend some time going through the > GraphViz docs and trying things out with their genealogy graphs, I'm sure > we could incorporate suggestions easily into Gramps. I'll try to look into it further, but we are away for a couple of weeks after Christmas, so it might be in January some time. However, from my experimenting so far, it looks like the mclimit set to 99 (as in Gramps) is about right, rather than the default 30. In the files I tried, the optimum was usually reached after 40 or 50 runs (lines of dot -v) and increasing mclimit above 99 didn't help. regards Peter |
From: Maurice S. <Maurice@Snell.org.uk> - 2014-08-16 17:52:17
|
Hi All, Did anyone find any way to improve the graphviz output from gramps? Please see this example snippet of a large (500+ node) graph, output from the gramps family tree tool which uses graphviz. <http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/file/n4666831/graphviz_dot.png> The graph would be much easier to read if the 2 nodes for William Snell were moved to the right of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, removing 2 unnecessary crossings. There are many similar examples in the output graph where horizontally swapping some of the nodes would significantly reduce the crossings on the plotted graph. As well as using the built-in graphviz in gramps, I have also got gramps to output a graphviz .gv file, and I've then tried adjusting some of the parameters, e.g. increasing mclimit & searchsize, and replotting using the latest version of graphviz tool, however nothing I try so far improves the layout or changes it in anyway. Can anyone please suggest how to configure graphviz to do a better job at reducing crossings by reordering the nodes? Alternatively are there hand-edits I could make to the .gv file to achieve this? One observation is that the overall graph might look better if the nodes were more spread out on rows/ranks where there is plenty of space. I.e. the family tree is dense at the bottom (present day), so nodes fill the entire width of the output, however further back in time there are many less entries in the graph, so there is lots of horizontal space available, however graphviz always seems to want to pack the nodes tightly together. If they were spaced out more, it would be easier to view. Again, does anyone know how to configure graphviz to do this? Thanks for any suggestions. -- View this message in context: http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/layout-editor-for-graphviz-tp3094053p4666831.html Sent from the GRAMPS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. |
From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2014-08-17 04:51:14
|
------------------------ From: Maurice Snell Sun 17 Aug 2014 16:45:32 NZST To: gra...@li... Subject: Re: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > Did anyone find any way to improve the graphviz output from gramps? > As well as using the built-in graphviz in gramps, I have also got gramps to > output a graphviz .gv file, and I've then tried adjusting some of the > parameters, e.g. increasing mclimit & searchsize, and replotting using the > latest version of graphviz tool, however nothing I try so far improves the > layout or changes it in anyway. > > Can anyone please suggest how to configure graphviz to do a better job at > reducing crossings by reordering the nodes? Alternatively are there > hand-edits I could make to the .gv file to achieve this? Yes, it is frustrating when there are obvious layout improvements that graphviz doesn't make. Like you, I haven't achieved any improvement by changing parameters like mclimit. However, changing the order of the people lines in the .gv file can make a big difference (or no difference) in the result. A little script was made to automate this process. It usually achieves at least some improvement in layout. https://gramps-project.org/bugs/view.php?id=6184 HTH Peter |
From: Maurice S. <Maurice@Snell.org.uk> - 2014-08-18 13:21:56
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Thanks Peter. What platform(s) has this script been used on? Has anyone used it on Windows? Maurice -- View this message in context: http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/layout-editor-for-graphviz-tp3094053p4666844.html Sent from the GRAMPS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. |
From: Maurice S. <Maurice@Snell.org.uk> - 2014-08-18 18:54:49
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Thanks again. This script ran for 2 hours and made my family tree look beautiful! I have updated the script to V0.4 having made it run on Windows. -- View this message in context: http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/layout-editor-for-graphviz-tp3094053p4666851.html Sent from the GRAMPS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. |
From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2014-08-19 19:01:30
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Great to hear that it was useful. Thank you for contributing to the script. ------------------------ From: Maurice Snell <Maurice@Snell.org.uk Sent: Wednesday, Wed 20 Aug 2014 07:00:35 NZST To: gra...@li... Subject: Re: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > Thanks again. > > This script ran for 2 hours and made my family tree look beautiful! > > I have updated the script to V0.4 having made it run on Windows. > > -- > View this message in context: http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/layout-editor-for-graphviz-tp3094053p4666851.html > Sent from the GRAMPS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Gramps-users mailing list > Gra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > |
From: Maurice S. <Maurice@Snell.org.uk> - 2014-08-21 11:22:57
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Glad to hear it worked for you. The script does not exhaustively check all possibilities, so there could still be more improvements that look obvious on the graph but the script doesn't find. In some cases, running the script again on the output .dot file (renamed so it doesn't clash with the second run output) might make further improvements, but sometimes it makes no difference. Ideally you would want to measure other factors as well as the number of crossings, e.g. the total length of all the lines: it would be good to optimise the graph so that the total line length is as low as possible - this will make some improvements that don't affect the crossings. Unfortunately the current DOT tool doesn't report the line length, so the script can't do this without modifying the internals of DOT as well. Maurice -- View this message in context: http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/layout-editor-for-graphviz-tp3094053p4666869.html Sent from the GRAMPS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. |
From: Gerhard K. <ge...@ki...> - 2014-08-21 14:18:10
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Am 21.08.2014 13:22, schrieb Maurice Snell: > Glad to hear it worked for you. The script does not exhaustively > check all possibilities, so there could still be more improvements > that look obvious on the graph but the script doesn't find. In some > cases, running the script again on the output .dot file (renamed so > it doesn't clash with the second run output) might make further > improvements, but sometimes it makes no difference. > > Ideally you would want to measure other factors as well as the > number of crossings, e.g. the total length of all the lines: it > would be good to optimise the graph so that the total line length > is as low as possible - this will make some improvements that don't > affect the crossings. Unfortunately the current DOT tool doesn't > report the line length, so the script can't do this without > modifying the internals of DOT as well. I wonder if dot/graphviz itself might do a better job avoiding crossing and the like if gramps gave it some more pointers. E.g. gramps could assemble parts of the family tree that occur only once (no pedigree loss) inside a sub graph construct. I also wonder whether the strict requirement of putting the ancestors into ranks before doing any other placement is a problem. Thoughts? Cheers, Gerhard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iEYEARECAAYFAlP1/JIACgkQfg6TFvELooSaswCdEd45jORtN+0wQyoJ/knQeabs qvUAn2CXANPjBFirlTvkVhc7Vggze1Kp =dlx5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
From: jerome <rom...@ya...> - 2010-12-21 10:34:04
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Hi, > I am using dot 2.26.3 on Kubuntu 10.10 Does KGraphEditor (provided with KGraphViewer) cannot edit nodes or lines ? Jérôme --- En date de : Mar 21.12.10, Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> a écrit : > De: Peter Hewett <gr...@he...> > Objet: Re: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > À: "Gramps Users List" <gra...@li...>, "Stéphane Charette" <ste...@gm...> > Date: Mardi 21 décembre 2010, 9h25 > > thanks Stéphane, those hints were relevant and I now know > that what I am after > is minimising crossings, and that this is done within dot. > > Unfortunately, the various dot options don't seem to have > improved things. My > chart has 17 crossings for 494 nodes. The -v option > is great for showing a > bit more of what is happening. I am using dot 2.26.3 > on Kubuntu 10.10. > > group - can't see how to use this > mclimit - takes longer but no improvement > searchsize - no change > -Econstraint=false - used in command line, this puts > all nodes in one > vertical line (ie trashes the diagram) > -n<i> - no change > -x - no change > -Lg - no change > -ln<i> - no change > > Reordering the lines in the .gv text file changes the > results, sometimes > improving and sometimes making things worse (more > crossings). I managed to > get the result down to 12 crossings, but this approach is > very hit and miss. > There doesn't seem to be any logic to how to improve order > of the text lines > to get the best result. > > Perhaps the answer is to improve how dot optimises the > layout to minimise > crossings, but I'm not sure how to do this. > > I'll keep exploring. > > regards > > Peter > > > On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 22:55:38 Stéphane Charette wrote: > > There are options you can use to tell graphviz (dot) > to think about it > > harder to uncross lines. And in verbose mode, it > will print out the number > > of crosses and you can see it work down to (nearly) > zero if you're lucky. > > In Gramps, choose to generate a .gv file as the > output. > > > > Then, edit the .gv file with a text editor. Now > I haven't done this in a > > few years, but from what I remember some of the things > that have an effect > > were: > > - group <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:group> > (?) > > - mclimit <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:mclimit> > > - searchsize <http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:searchsize> > > > > > > The other settings I recently discovered which I'd > like to try out with > > Gramps to see what happens is > > constraint<http://www.graphviz.org/doc/info/attrs.html#d:constraint>. > > How would dot lay out all the nodes if every edge was > marked as > > constraint=false? > > > > Looking at the dot --help output right now, I'd also > be interested in > > looking up additional help on the -n[v] parameter, the > -x parameter, maybe > > -Lg, and definitely -ln<i>. And like I > said above, I recall that when > > using -v to enable verbose mode, it prints out a > message every second or > > so to say how many lines have crossed, and possibly > how much longer it > > will keep looking for further optimizations. > > > > Stéphane > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Lotusphere 2011 > Register now for Lotusphere 2011 and learn how > to connect the dots, take your collaborative environment > to the next level, and enter the era of Social Business. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/lotusphere-d2d > _______________________________________________ > Gramps-users mailing list > Gra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > |
From: Peter H. <gr...@he...> - 2010-12-21 18:03:54
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On Tue, 21 Dec 2010 23:33:55 jerome wrote: > > > I am using dot 2.26.3 on Kubuntu 10.10 > > Does KGraphEditor (provided with KGraphViewer) cannot edit nodes or lines ? > Hi Jerome, kgrapheditor enables you to edit node parameters, but I can't see any way to use it to adjust the layout. The nearest I can find to a GUI layout editor is dotty, but it seems very buggy (some menu items don't work, numlock key breaks some stuff). regards Peter |
From: Chris B. <chr...@bi...> - 2014-08-21 10:27:08
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Hi Peter and Maurice I have just run GrampsCrossing.04.py on a Relationship Graph generated by Gramps from my data. I don't know whether it is a big or small graph but at a rough count it has 200+ names and 100+ marriages. The script reduced the number of crossings from 21 to 4, making quite a difference. It took 21m28.113s to run on this elderly lappy. I run Windows on Linux Mint 17 XFCE and it ran fine on that. It is interesting that one of the crossings seemed from eyeball analysis to be a trivial matter to fix. I also ran the graph using GrampsCrossing.03.py with the same sort of result 21m30.024s. Thanks gentlemen. On 20/08/14 03:01, Peter Hewett wrote: > Great to hear that it was useful. > Thank you for contributing to the script. > > ------------------------ > From: Maurice Snell <Maurice@Snell.org.uk > Sent: Wednesday, Wed 20 Aug 2014 07:00:35 NZST > To: gra...@li... > Subject: Re: [Gramps-users] layout editor for graphviz > >> Thanks again. >> >> This script ran for 2 hours and made my family tree look beautiful! >> >> I have updated the script to V0.4 having made it run on Windows. >> >> -- >> View this message in context: http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/layout-editor-for-graphviz-tp3094053p4666851.html >> Sent from the GRAMPS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> _______________________________________________ >> Gramps-users mailing list >> Gra...@li... >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users >> > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Gramps-users mailing list > Gra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > |