Cross-aspect-ratio coherence for ARCOL layouts

Develop methods to preserve cross-aspect-ratio coherence while maintaining geometric quality in orthogonal network layouts produced by ARCOL across different target aspect ratios, so that the same graph remains structurally consistent across display configurations.

Background

ARCOL integrates aspect ratio control directly into the orthogonal layout pipeline by modifying stress minimization and tree reattachment. In the current implementation, ARCOL optimizes each target aspect ratio independently.

The authors note that optimizing layouts separately for each aspect ratio can produce structural differences across display configurations, potentially harming users’ mental map and visual consistency. Preserving structural coherence across aspect ratios while maintaining geometric quality is therefore identified as an explicit future research task.