[Uml-devel] auto-layout and graphviz

[Andrew Sutton]

> Does anyone has tried to implement autolayout using graphviz?
> I need it, and I'll begin soon to do it myself, but if there is an  
> autolayout
> plug-in ready, I'll obviously prefer to use it.

graphviz sort of has options for uml layout. i used it in my masters  
thesis for generating uml diagrams. unfortunately, it's pretty hard  
to go back and forth from say, umbrello, to graphviz. i wouldn't say  
impossible, but certainly difficult and probably not worth the  
effort. this is mainly because graphviz is just a cmd line tool, not  
a layout library.

on the other hand, the boost graph library has a number of layout  
algorithms. it would certainly be more effective for umbrello, but i  
don't know how easy it would be to make boost account for the  
different size graph nodes you get with uml (i.e., classes).

andrew sutton
asutton at cs.kent.edu