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Opacity-Modulated Edge Drawing

Authors Kazuo Misue , Naoto Kikuta

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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Human-centered computing → Graph drawings
Keywords
  • node-link diagrams
  • edge drawing
  • visual clutter
  • opacity modulation
  • temporal visualization

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Abstract

Edge crossings are a major source of visual clutter in node-link diagrams, causing visual interference through edge-segment overlaps. For graphs with fixed layouts, various approaches have been proposed to reduce crossings or their effects, including partial edge-drawing methods and techniques that modify edge shapes or routes. However, these approaches require changes to edge geometry or drawing extent. In this paper, we propose Opacity-Modulated Edge Drawing (OMED), a method to reduce interference while preserving edge geometry. OMED temporally modulates the opacity of each edge and controls the timing based on crossing relationships between edges, suppressing situations in which crossing edges simultaneously become highly visible. The method is formulated as a scheduling problem over crossing relationships between edges. To provide a unified evaluation framework for static and dynamic edge-drawing methods, we define three metrics: Degree of Visibility, Degree of Completeness, and Degree of Interference. Experimental evaluation based on these metrics showed that the max-fill implementation of OMED exhibited a different balance among visibility ratio, completeness ratio, and interference degree compared with representative existing edge-drawing methods. In particular, OMED (max-fill) maintained a visibility ratio comparable to that of the morphing edge drawing approach, while achieving a higher completeness ratio and a lower interference degree. These results demonstrate that different grouping strategies provide different trade-offs among visibility, completeness, and interference. This study therefore introduces a new approach based on temporal control of simultaneous visibility of crossing edges and expands the design space of edge-drawing methods.

Cite As Get BibTex

Kazuo Misue and Naoto Kikuta. Opacity-Modulated Edge Drawing. In 34th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 396, pp. 26:1-26:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.GD.2026.26

Author Details

Kazuo Misue
  • University of Tsukuba, Japan
Naoto Kikuta
  • University of Tsukuba, Japan

Funding

  • Misue, Kazuo: JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP24K15024.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Supplementary Materials

References

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