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What options are available for the layout of directed or undirected graphs in .NET?

Asked 2009-02-26T10:04:17.433
33

By graph here I mean something resembling these images:

The ideal solution would:

  • use only managed code
  • allow output to a bitmap image
  • allow output to WPF elements
  • include some kind of interactive surface for displaying the graph that supports zooming, panning and reorganisation of nodes

I'm also interested in hearing about projects that could potentially be used as the starting point for this kind of work. If it requires some development to achieve what I want, then I'm prepared to tackle it. The most complex portion of this goal seems to be obtaining the graph layout in a reasonable time frame.

.net rendering graph-theory directed-graph graph-layout
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2 Answers

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Graphviz is still today, in my opinion, one of the best graph library there is. However, integrating it to .Net is a pain.

It is possible to call the command line tool to generate a shape output based on your graph input, then you read the output and lay the elements on a custom control that displays whatever shapes graphviz has calculated. It's very hacky but it's the best way our team have found of integrating graphviz with .Net a few years ago.

A better solution might exist today; at that time GLEE was still very embrionic and I haven't seen the progress Microsoft did since that time.

answered 2009-02-26T17:02:41.000
1

The boys at Mindscape have such a tool

With the imaginative name WPF Flow Diagrams

Also, check out Vertigo's Family.Show demo project, it has a simple form of this

answered 2009-02-26T12:19:56.470

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