Visualization Using Graphviz

QuickGraph supports generating dot files, the file format of [Graphviz]. All Graphviz related code are located in the QuickGraph.Graphviz assembly.

Basic graph rendering

The GraphvizAlgorithm class contains the logic to render a IVertexAndEdgeListGraph.

• GraphFormat, CommonVertexFormat and CommonEdgeFormat control the default 'looks' of the generated graph,
• FormatVertex and FormatEdge events let you customize the display of individual vertices and edges.

IVertexAndEdgeListGraph<TVertex,TEdge> g= ...;
var graphviz = new GraphvizAlgorithm<TVertex,TEdge>(g);

// render
string output = graphviz.Generate(new FileDotEngine(), "graph");

Custom Rendering of Dot

QuickGraph sends the generated dot code to a 'dot engine' interface which is supposed to do the rest of the work. This is where you can plugin and add any additional steps. QuickGraph provides a simple rendering engine that writes the dot file to disk :)

public interface IDotEngine
{
    // renders the dot code and returns the name of the generated file
    string Run(
        GraphvizImageType imageType,
        string dot,
        string outputFileName);
}