Graph drawing is the process of embedding a graph (network) within a space of some kind, most typically a plane.
Graph drawing is the process of embedding a graph (network) within a space of some kind, most typically a plane. Algorithms for graph drawing generally aim to produce output with particular characteristics, such as having few edge crossings. A planar graph is one that can be drawn in a plane with no edge crossings; a planar graph layout algorithm will produce such a layout for any planar graph.
Other graph drawing algorithms provide variants such as orthogonal and/or grid-aligned drawing; these sometimes involve representing vertices as boxes rather than points. These variants are desirable for such applications as circuit layout and automatic plotting of graph-structured diagrams such as UML or database models.
