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Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

graphviz.org

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Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#131

I love Graphviz! It’s in the Observable standard library as the dot tagged template literal, powered by Viz.js. https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/dot Here’s a recent example where I used it to figure out why certain dependencies are in my node_modules: https://twitter.com/mbostock/status/1479693504511053824

That said, compared to the visual clarity of most of the visualizations you share, the graphs that come out of Graphviz are pretty hard to read. If you zoom in and pan around you can easily get disoriented in some patch of nothing but spaghetti lines. This is definitely an area where some mbostock magic would be of huge benefit.

Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#133
I use tinc VPN [0] to connect a bunch of separated LANs together, and a built-in configuration directive

    GraphDumpFile = /etc/tinc/network/graph.viz
will generate a real-time network graph using the Graphviz DOT language. It's a cool feature that I find quite useful.

[0] https://tinc-vpn.org/

Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#134
Graphviz has saved my bacon so many times throughout my career. Not just for visualising constraints and dependencies in planning and scheduling (construction, not computing) but in so many other areas.

Best example was for fabrication of a large subsea structure. Often, these critical assets have material traceability requirements on-par with space exploration, producing thousands of pages of certificates and documentation along the way.

I.e. you need to prove and assure the provenance of every piece of material sitting on the 1km down on the ocean floor back to the assay report of the soup in the ladle at the forge when it was formed, and everything in between; material certificates, design specs, third party testing, mother plate to material stock to final cut part identification, and all the third-party witnessing and assurance along the way. Easy for small parts but cumbersome for 60tn structures with thousands of parts and welds.

When the requirement is 100% QA/QC coverage, linking IDs to certificates and other documents in each part of the chain meant we could easily visualise things and look for rogue elements like child parts pertaining to be from two seperate mother plates, or destructive testing coverage for all materials.

Not how it's usually done but it was a useful tool for communicating to other not so technical stakeholders and helping some on the project sleep easier. :-)

Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#135
I love graphviz!!!

Used it as a helper in my first project at Snowflake (role hierarchy layout) https://github.com/Snowflake-Labs/sfgrantreport and won a nice hacking award for it. Then the product saw it and folded what I made into the main UI.

Huge props to the graphviz for making it easy to draw my ideas from whiteboard into svg/pdf/png!

Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#136
Related, does anyone know if there are any good tools for learning things about a graph (not necessarily a graphviz graph, but that'd be fine!)? Things like... take a graph from me and identify all the "islands" that don't connect to each other? Or to find the shortest 'path' from point A to point B in a graph?

Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#137

I use graphviz probably weekly and it's actually become a bit of a productivity hack. If there's something I don't want to do, I can often convince myself to just DRAW it instead, usually with graphviz. Once drawn, the actual task is easier, both because the barrier of starting is overcome, and because the drawing is useful in the task. For example, I had to parse DWARF debug info recently to scrape type information,…

Wonderful, the graph is much clearer than text specs.

Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#138
Related:

GraphVizio[1] "an addin for Microsoft Visio which allows you to layout Visio diagrams using the renowned Graphviz algorithms developed by AT&T research laboratories." - https://www.calvert.ch/graphvizio/

PSGraph[2] a PowerShell wrapper / DSL for GraphViz and dot language. - https://powershellexplained.com/2017-01-30-Powershell-PSGrap...

Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#139
post #58
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/

I used to generate most of my diagrams in PlantUML[0], but recently found that my not-taking app, Joplin[1], has Mermaid built in. PlantUML has the benefit that you can include it in your builds, e.g. parse any .plantuml files in `make doc` or in your CI. But I like Mermaid more: its easier to read, less quirky and easily integratable in the markdown (or note-taking apps) without the need for extra build steps. [0] h…

Dendron[1] note taking extension for VS Code has Mermaid support builtin to its markdown renderer as well.

That's how I recently found that Mermaid can't handle graphs with no flow https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid/issues/1227

[1] https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/ba97866b-889f-4ac6-86e7-bb2d97...

Re: Graphviz: Open-source graph visualization software

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually disappointed that `gvpr` isn't mentioned at all on GraphViz's main page, because I think it's its most powerful tool. All I could find are manpages, and not even on GraphViz's own website! https://manpages.debian.org/testing/graphviz/gvpr.1.en.html

Are there any good examples of how you'd actually use this in practice?

I don't know of any example, but I immediately thought of a use case: to use it as a sort of CSS language where you take a graph with only 'semantic' custom attributes and use the GVPR language to transform these into shape and style attributes that are recognized by Graphviz, so that you don't have to repeat all the style information for each node and edge. That's already pretty exciting to me!
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