Improve plotting of trees

[boothby]

When one plots a tree with G.plot(layout='tree'), the result is ugly. For one thing, a tree plot should never have crossing lines. I have code that makes a nice tree plot in nearly-linear time, which should be included in Sage.

[boothby]

old plot

[boothby]

desired output

[ncohen]

You code looks like it first chooses the center vertex in the graph, then converts is as a Poset by picking this special vertex as a root, and plotting this Poset... But you did not post the patch :-)

[boothby]

Uhm... my code does nothing like what you said. And I didn't post the patch because I hadn't cleaned it up / incorporated it into the GraphPlot? class / documented it. But now I have!

[ncohen]

I just tried your patch, and as I never plotted any tree in Sage, I tried to generate some for a start.... I tried your algorithm on graphs.BalancedTree?(3,4) and graphs.BalancedTree?(3,5). They are displayed on my machine in a very odd shape ( the picture had a large width and a very small height ). I admit these graphs contain a lot of vertices and may not be good examples, but what do you think of this result ? Do you think there would be a way to slightly change you code so that in such cases the plot could have a look closer from what one gets with the current layout=tree parameter ?

I know it is very easy to criticize in such cases, and much harder to come up with a good algorithm.. Thinking about it, I thought that maybe the best way to draw a tree properly would be to begin with a cross-free embedding of the tree in the plane ( as you mentionned ), then to use the usual trick of repulsion between vertices to obtain a balanced shape ? I know it is not a good solution because of its complexity. I'll continue thinking about it, though O_o

[boothby]

These are extreme examples, and I'm not sure that a top-down layout will ever look good. I believe that the solution for this particular problem would be to implement a circular tree layout algorithm. However, if you play with the parameters, you can get a fairly nice plot.

    T = graphs.BalancedTree(3,5)
    P = T.plot(layout='tree',tree_root=0)
    P.show(aspect_ratio=.1,figsize=(15,15))

[ncohen]

Applies fines, and I could not find any bug in it. Clearly improves the plotting for "human" trees. This new patch includes the previous one, plus :

• A INPUT section
• A new semicolumn after EXAMPLES ::

If you agree with these changes, you can set this ticket to positive review !

Nathann

[nthiery]

Thanks much for improving the layout of trees!

Please have a look at #7004, which also started splitting the layout algorithms in different methods. So we need to decide on a naming convention.

Then I guess this patch can get in, and #7400 be rebased on it.

[myurko]

Replying to ncohen:

Applies fines, and I could not find any bug in it. Clearly improves the plotting for "human" trees. This new patch includes the previous one, plus : * A INPUT section * A new semicolumn after EXAMPLES :: If you agree with these changes, you can set this ticket to positive review ! Nathann

The change look fine.