Graphviz

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Visual rendering by Graphviz. This graph visualises the relationship between a group of bloggers.

Undirected graph showing adjacency of the 48 continental United States

Graphviz (short for Graph Visualization Software) is a package of open source tools initiated by AT&T Research Labs for drawing graphs specified in DOT language scripts. It also provides libraries for software applications to use the tools. Graphviz is free software licensed under the Common Public License.

[edit] Architecture

Graphviz consists of a graph description language named the DOT language^[1] and a set of tools that can generate and/or process DOT files:

dot 

a command-line tool to lay out directed graphs into a variety of output formats (PostScript, PDF, SVG, annotated text and so on).

neato 

for "spring model" layout (in Mac OS version called "energy minimised")

twopi 

for radial graph layouts.

circo 

for circular graph layouts.

fdp 

another layout engine for undirected graphs.

dotty 

a graphical user interface to visualize and edit graphs.

lefty 

a programmable widget that displays DOT graphs and allows the user to perform actions on them with the mouse. Lefty can therefore be used as the view in a model-view-controller GUI application that uses graphs.

[edit] Applications

• Doxygen uses Graphviz to generate diagrams including class hierarchies and collaboration for computer program source code.
• GRAMPS uses Graphviz to create family trees
• GraphViz - MediaWiki Graphviz Extension
• Linguine Maps Java API to Graphviz
• lisp2dot converts Lisp-like program trees to DOT language. Designed for use with genetic programming.
• MoinMoin wiki Graphviz Extension
• UMLGraph creates UML class and sequence diagrams from declarative specifications
• WinGraphviz is a win32 platform application.
• WikidPad - Uses Graphviz as a plugin
• QuickGraph can use Graphviz to render the graphs

[edit] See also

• Graph (mathematics)
• Graph drawing
• Graph theory

[edit] References

1. ^ The DOT Language

[edit] External links

Free software portal

• Graphviz Homepage
• AT&T Research Labs
• An Introduction to Graphviz and dot (M. Simionato, 2004)
• Create relationship diagrams with Graphviz (Shashank Sharma, 2005)
• Visualize function calls with Graphviz (M. Tim Jones, 2005)

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