Microsoft Automatic Graph Layout

A set of tools for graph layout and viewing

The simplest way to start with MSAGL in C# is to open GraphLayout.sln in Visual Studio 2013, and have a look at Samples there.

MSAGL is a .NET tool for graph layout and viewing. It was developed in Microsoft by Lev Nachmanson, Sergey Pupyrev, Tim Dwyer, Ted Hart, and Roman Prutkin. MSAGL is available as open source at https://github.com/Microsoft/automatic-graph-layout.git.

The Distribution Content and Important Features

The package contains the following:

• Layout engine (Microsoft.MSAGL.dll) - The core layout functionality. This component can be used directly in cases when visualization is handled by a tool other than MSAGL.
• Drawing module (Microsoft.MSAGL.Drawing.dll) - The Definitions of different drawing attributes like colors, line styles, etc. It also contains definitions of a node class, an edge class, and a graph class. By using these classes a user can create a graph object and use it later for layout, and rendering.
• Viewer control (Microsoft.MSAGL.GraphViewerGDIGraph.dll) - The viewer control, and some other rendering functionality.

Some important features of the viewer are:

• Pan and Zoom of the graph.
• Forward and Backward navigation.
• Ability to configure tooltips and highlighting of graph entities.
• Ability to search for and focus on entities of the graph.

#Code Samples The code snippet demonstrates the basic usage of the viewer. It uses the C# language.

##The Viewer sample

Drawing of the graph from the sampleDrawing of the graph from the sample

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic; 
using System.Windows.Forms; 
class ViewerSample { 
    public static void Main() { 
    //create a form 
        System.Windows.Forms.Form form = new System.Windows.Forms.Form();
    //create a viewer object 
        Microsoft.Msagl.GraphViewerGdi.GViewer viewer = new Microsoft.Msagl.GraphViewerGdi.GViewer();
    //create a graph object 
        Microsoft.Msagl.Drawing.Graph graph = new Microsoft.Msagl.Drawing.Graph("graph");
    //create the graph content 
        graph.AddEdge("A", "B");
        graph.AddEdge("B", "C");
        graph.AddEdge("A", "C").Attr.Color = Microsoft.Msagl.Drawing.Color.Green;
        graph.FindNode("A").Attr.FillColor = Microsoft.Msagl.Drawing.Color.Magenta;
        graph.FindNode("B").Attr.FillColor = Microsoft.Msagl.Drawing.Color.MistyRose;
        Microsoft.Msagl.Drawing.Node c = graph.FindNode("C");
        c.Attr.FillColor = Microsoft.Msagl.Drawing.Color.PaleGreen;
        c.Attr.Shape = Microsoft.Msagl.Drawing.Shape.Diamond;
    //bind the graph to the viewer 
        viewer.Graph = graph;
    //associate the viewer with the form 
        form.SuspendLayout();
        viewer.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill;
        form.Controls.Add(viewer);
        form.ResumeLayout();
    //show the form 
        form.ShowDialog();
    } 
}

More code samples…

#GraphMaps This functionality allows viewing a large graph in the online map fashion. Here is a video demoing GraphMaps. To see the system in action please open Lg.sln, build it, and run TestGraphMaps. The configuration Release/x64 needs to be used to load a large graph. The graph from the video can be found in GraphLayout/graphs/composers.zip. Please load composers.msagl to avoid the preprocessing step. If composers.dot is loaded then composers.msagl and the tiles directory composers.msagl_tiles will be regenerated. GraphMaps ideas, design, and the mathematics are described in a paper.

#Layouts Created by MSAGL