Re: [Boost-users] [BGL] visualizing large graphs

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [BGL] visualizing large graphs
From: Jeff Flinn (TriumphSprint2000_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-10-01 09:08:33

Cedric Laczny wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> although this might seem a bit off-topic, I think it is an important topic and 
> might be very well interesting for some of us.
> The boost graph library provides methods to export graphs e.g. for the use 
> with graphviz.
> However, this is a rather "one-way" solution. Besides that, it is difficult to 
> handle large graphs with graphviz. 

I've been able to view graphs(DAG) with at least 1M nodes using graphviz 
with SVG output displayed in a Qt QSVGWidget without problem and in 
under 1 second on windows XP with the /3GB switch and 4GB ram.

The majority of time is in Qt's svg widget interpretation.

Any memory limitation were due the the lame design of the underlying 
node structure, which was replicating lot's of redundant and unnecessary 
data.

I'm not sure what you mean by "one-way". The above svg approach was good 
enough for my use, but it would have been trivial to replace svg with Qt 
graphics items, allowing the user to click on a node or edge and have 
access to the underlying graph data, update the layout, refresh the 
screen in a reasonable amount of time.

Jeff