"In the topological and geometric foundations to graph drawing, this collection goes beyond defining planarity or even minimizing edge crossings, discussing also spine, radial, circular, tree, and rectangular drawing definitions and algorithms. There is much content on formally defining and approaching such subjective and even aesthetic areas as legibility in name placement and labeling, as well as maximizing pleasing symmetries and other methods related to edge lengths and linearity that research has shown to impart information to humans effectively. Many chapters touch on history and open problems in this well-arranged compendium weighted toward content ripe for practical implementation."
―Tom Schulte, MAA Reviews, February 2014
"This handbook fills an important need. It is an impressive compendium of research in the booming field of graph drawing and visualization: algorithms, layout strategies, and software for diverse problem domains. It’s great to have all these resources in one place, showing the vibrant activity in graph drawing and visualization. The book lays a foundation for the next generation of research breakthroughs. Whether you drill down or go wide, you’ll learn something useful. You’ll see how effectively designed network visualizations can produce powerful insights in many fields."
―Prof. Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland
"This handbook is the most comprehensive reference on graph drawing I have ever seen. It is an indispensable aid to programmers, engineers, students, teachers, and researchers who create or use algorithms and systems for visualizing networks and abstract graphs. It covers the theory and practice in core topics and related areas, such as labeling, programming frameworks, and applications in network analysis. It’s an amazing compendium of almost everything known about practical graph drawing."
―Stephen North, Executive Director and Co-Founder of graphviz.org
"After two decades of annual graph drawing conferences, the field is sufficiently developed to warrant this nearly 900-page Handbook. All constituencies are well-served. New researchers can become quickly oriented to the field through the opening foundational chapters. Practitioners can find algorithms to suit their needs in the heart of the handbook: ten chapters on a wealth of algorithms, usefully organized into intuitive categories: from planar algorithms to three-dimensional drawings, passing through the natural restrictions―radial, rectangular, circular, polyline―and from hierarchical to force-directed.
Many algorithms are now incorporated into graph-drawing software packages, and all the major packages are described in chapters by their developers. The key application areas are surveyed, some to be expected―biological networks, social networks, cartography―and some less obvious but no less active, e.g., education and computer security. All chapters are authored by the leaders of the field and edited into a pleasing common style.
The field of graph drawing remains dynamic, as testified by the many open problems collected in the chapters, from turning Mani’s theorem into an algorithm for 3-connected planar graphs, to deciding whether every degree-6 graph has a 2-bend orthogonal drawing in 3D. It is an achievement to so thoroughly cover the range from theory to algorithms to software to applications, and I expect the Handbook to serve as the key resource for researchers in the field."
―Joseph O’Rourke, Smith College
