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161 points knsv | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.402s | source
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Xmd5a ◴[] No.42741362[source]
I only use diagramming tools with automatic layout algos to generate visualizations programmatically to debug things. For documentation purpose, I largely prefer to draw them by hand using OmniGraffle, because making graphs look nice using tools like graphviz is very complex and you find yourself abusing features to hack your vision into reality

What's dearly needed in my opinion is a graph layout algo based on a machine learning model (so that it can take into account readability and aesthetics). Unfortunately what I found so far is mostly concerned with displaying large graphs, which is kind of another domain altogether.

I hope Mermaid is collecting every single edition point that happens on their UI, that would make for a nice dataset I guess.

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terrastruct ◴[] No.42741799[source]
We make (and sell) one, you can play with it here: https://play.d2lang.com/?script=qlDQtVOo5AIEAAD__w%3D%3D&lay...

Bigger example: https://play.d2lang.com/?script=rJLfavMwDMXv_RR6gYbvo3ce7FWG...

(I don't like to self promo on competitor posts, but since Mermaid doesn't compete in making its own layout engine I felt sharing this under this thread is relevant to HN. If anyone from Mermaid finds it in poor taste just let me know and I'll delete)

replies(2): >>42742994 #>>42744062 #
1. Xmd5a ◴[] No.42744062[source]
I tried TALA and am surprised to learn it embeds a machine learning model. I settled on ELK (very complex and time consuming to get right), before getting interested in constraint based graph layout (mostly for aligning nodes). Symmetry is nice to have too.

In fact what I'm trying to do is generating beautiful flow graph illustrations like this (non-sensical, just to give you a vibe):

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIG4.sqo88280g1BDb7r2aORg?pid=ImgG...

Tis hard. Graph layout (bites fist). Layout based image diffusion (tears). One day though.

replies(1): >>42745308 #
2. gregoryw3 ◴[] No.42745308[source]
Wondering where the machine learning model comes into play? Googling doesn’t seem to bring me to an article and the terrastruct site doesn’t mention it as far as I can see.