Experiments on Area Compaction Algorithms for Orthogonal Drawings

This paper presents an experimental study on several compaction algorithms for orthogonal drawings of graphs. We concentrate on algorithms that minimize the area, and compare them with other representative compaction algorithms in the state of the art. In particular, we propose a new exact algorithm that minimizes the total edge length subject to the optimization of the area, and experimentally prove that it is the best choice in many cases.