3D Graph Drawing with Simulated Annealing

A recent trend in graph drawing is directed to the visualization of graphs in 3D [1, 5, 6]. A promising research direction concerns the extension of proven 2D techniques to 3D. We present a system extending the simulated annealing algorithm of Davidson and Harel [2] for straight-line two-dimensional drawings of general undirected graphs to three dimensions. This system features an advanced 3D user interface that assists the user in choosing and modifying the cost function and the optimization components on-line.