Towards Data-Driven Multilinear Metro Maps [article]

Soeren Nickel, Martin Nöllenburg
2020 arXiv   pre-print
Traditionally, most schematic metro maps in practice as well as metro map layout algorithms adhere to an octolinear layout style with all paths composed of horizontal, vertical, and 45-diagonal edges. Despite growing interest in more general multilinear metro maps, generic algorithms to draw metro maps based on a system of k > 2 not necessarily equidistant slopes have not been investigated thoroughly. In this paper we present and implement an adaptation of the octolinear mixed-integer linear
more » ... gramming approach of Nöllenburg and Wolff (2011) that can draw metro maps schematized to any set C of arbitrary orientations. We further present a data-driven approach to determine a suitable set C by either detecting the best rotation of an equidistant orientation system or by clustering the input edge orientations using a k-means algorithm. We demonstrate the new possibilities of our method using several real-world examples.
arXiv:1904.03039v2 fatcat:pbvk7uwjvjggbeozj35qqmztj4