We propose a technique that allows straight-line graph drawings to be rendered interactively with adjustable level of detail. The approach consists of a novel combination of edge cumulation with density-based node aggregation and is designed to exploit common graphics hardware for speed. It operates directly on graph data and does not require precomputed hierarchies or meshes. As proof of concept, we present an implementation that scales to graphs with millions of nodes and edges, and discuss several example applications.
@article{Zinsmaier2012InteractiveLevelDetail, author = {M. Zinsmaier, U. Brandes, O. Deussen, H. Strobelt}, doi = {10.1109/TVCG.2012.238}, issn = {1077-2626}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics}, keywords = {rendering (computer graphics);common graphics hardware;density-based node aggregation;edge cumulation;graph data;interactive level-of-detail rendering;straight-line graph drawings;Aggregates;Data visualization;Image color analysis;Image edge detection;Rendering (computer graphics);Graph visualization;OpenGL;edge aggregation}, month = {dec}, number = {12}, pages = {2486--2495}, title = {Interactive Level-of-Detail Rendering of Large Graphs}, url = {http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/publikationen/Zinsmaier2012InteractiveLevelDetail}, volume = {18}, year = {2012} }