On Tue, 3 Dec 2002, Richard Fateman wrote:
> I came across something called (I think) GML Graph Modeling Language.
> There is a whole collection of people who make their
> living in the display of graphs. (like directed graphs with
> nodes and edges).
When I first looked for Graph drawing engines, I found the following
http://directory.google.com/Top/Science/Math/Combinatorics/Software/Graph_Drawing/
among those
http://graphdrawing.org/
where I found that the 2001 Conference was in Vienna (that's my home...)
> There are annual conferences etc. There
> is a ASCII text file format for conveying their examples
> around. I don't know how it might be related to Knuth's sgb
> though.
> The people at ATT labs who did neato and dotty also accept this
> format. Along with 27 other formats or so.
I looked at "The GraphML File Format" http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/ but
I can't claim that I understood it. Well, I don't know anything about XML
and only very little about html.
If somebody is willing to write a filter Maxima internal Hypergraph
format (yet to be defined) ---> GraphML or whatever, that would be
wonderful. However, I think we first need to think about the best
internal representation.
> This does not say how things should look internally in lisp
> but it would seem to me that a objected-oriented kind of thing
> should be flexible.
I do appreciate your advice.
> We have some programs that use (on windows)
> Common Graphics in Allegro CL to do the drawing outselves; however
> there are programs from ATT that do that too (allowing selection,
> editing, redisplay).
>
> I have a student looking into interfacing between lisp
> and some of those other programs. Maybe his final report will
> make clear what can be done or should be done differently. We
> have a particular application in mind related to computer aided
> tomography.
>
> RJF
Here in Bordeaux there is just a conference on "grands graphes", Tamara
Muzner seems to be well known and David Auber (Tulip) just defended his
thesis on the subject. If your student is interested in that sort of
stuff, I can set up a link!
I think however, that maxima will be more concerned with "small graphs",
rich in symmetry and structure. Cages, Aztec-Diamonds, Lattices (by the
way, we should think about infinite graphs, too...) and the like. That is,
graphs that are defined by some recursion or similar means.
Well, in any case, we will (should) be able to run MANY graph drawing
engines, not just one!
Martin