An improved graph drawing algorithm for email networks

This paper addresses the graph drawing problem for email networks. First, the graph drawing problem is formulated as a minimization problem. Then, a genetic algorithm based graph drawing method is proposed by solving the minimization problem. By taking into account the smallworld property of the email-networks, the proposed method improved the force-directed graph drawing algorithm to draw the graph more intuitively and aesthetically. It also speeds up the graph drawing algorithm by ignoring repulsive force far away from the vertex, and prevents the nearly disconnected graph from being pushed to the border. Moreover, the key cliques of the email networks are placed in the central of the layout. Experiment tests show that the proposed method has better performance in satisfying the aesthetic criterions and time consumption.