Orthogonal Edge Routing for the EditLens

Abstract: The EditLens is an interactive lens technique that supports the editing of graphs. The user can insert, update, or delete nodes and edges while maintaining an already existing layout of the graph. For the nodes and edges that are affected by an edit operation, the EditLens suggests suitable locations and routes, which the user can accept or adjust. For this purpose, the EditLens requires an efficient routing algorithm that can compute results at interactive framerates. Existing algorithms cannot fully satisfy the needs of the EditLens. This paper describes a novel algorithm that can compute orthogonal edge routes for incremental edit operations of graphs. Tests indicate that, in general, the algorithm is better than alternative solutions.