libcola is a cross-platform C++ library for constraint graph layout. Specifically, force-directed layout using the stress-majorization method subject to separation constraints. Applications include layout with non-overlapping nodes and clusters, directed graph layout and layout preserving the crossing properties of a given starting layout.

libcola is part of the Adaptagrams project. There are no official releases yet, though the code is stable and available from the Adaptagrams GitHub repository.

The API is documented using Doxygen. The documentation you are currently reading can be obtained by running doxygen in the cola directory.

libcola is written and maintained by Michael Wybrow and Tim Dwyer, members of Immersive Analytics Lab at Monash University, Australia.

The algorithms used for ConstrainedFDLayout are described in the following papers. If you use libcola, please cite the relevant paper.

• Tim Dwyer, Kim Marriott, and Michael Wybrow. Topology preserving constrained graph layout. In Proc. 16th Intl. Symp. Graph Drawing (GD'08), volume 5417 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 230-241. Springer, 2009.
• Tim Dwyer, Kim Marriott, and Michael Wybrow. Dunnart: A constraint-based network diagram authoring tool. In Proc. 16th Intl. Symp. Graph Drawing (GD'08), volume 5417 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 420-431. Springer, 2009.
• Tim Dwyer, Kim Marriott, Falk Schreiber, Peter J. Stuckey, Michael Woodward, and Michael Wybrow. Exploration of networks using overview+detail with constraint-based cooperative layout. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 14(6):1293-1300, 2008.

The method used in ConstrainedMajorizationLayout is described in:

• Tim Dwyer and Kim Marriott. Constrained stress majorization using diagonally scaled gradient projection. In Proc. 15th Intl. Symp. Graph Drawing (GD '07), volume 4875 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, 2008.