Next generation information technologies and systems

Given the recent move towards visual languages in real-world system specification and design, the need for algorithmic procedures that produce clear and eye-pleasing layouts of complex diagrammatic entities arises in full force. This talk addresses a modest, yet still very difficult version of the problem, in which the diagrams are merelygeneral undirected graphs with straight-line edges. We have designed a system that carries out a rather complex set of preprocessing steps, designed to produce a topologically good, but not necessarily nice-looking layout. The result is then subjected to an annealing-like beautification algorithm. The final layout is always planar for planar graphs and attempts to come close to being planar for nonplanar graphs. Future research topics will be sketched.