Choosing Colors for Geometric Graphs Via Color Space Embeddings

Graph drawing research traditionally focuses on producing geometric embeddings of graphs satisfying various aesthetic constraints. However additional work must still be done to draw a graph even after its geometric embedding is specified: assigning display colors to the graph's vertices. We study the additional aesthetic criterion of assigning distinct colors to vertices of a geometric graph so that the colors assigned to adjacent vertices are as different from one another as possible. We formulate this as a problem involving perceptual metrics in color space and we develop algorithms for solving this problem by embedding the graph in color space. We also present an application of this work to a distributed load-balancing visualization problem.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: GD
• Authors: Michael B. Dillencourt, David Eppstein, Michael T. Goodrich
• Keywords: Computer Graphics, GD 2006, Geometric Embedding, Graph Drawing Research, Graph's Vertices