Glossary · Layouts
Force-Directed Layout
Also known as: Force Layout, Spring Layout.
A graph layout that simulates physical springs and electrical charges so connected nodes attract and unconnected nodes repel.
A force-directed layout positions graph nodes by simulating a physical system. Each edge acts like a spring pulling its two endpoints together, and every node carries a charge that pushes other nodes away. Iterating this simulation until the system reaches equilibrium produces a layout where connected nodes cluster together and edge crossings are minimized.
The most common implementation uses the Barnes-Hut algorithm, which approximates long-range repulsion with a quadtree, reducing computation from O(n²) to O(n log n). This makes force layouts practical for graphs with thousands of nodes.
Force layouts are excellent for revealing community structure in social networks, similarity clusters in document graphs, and the natural shape of unstructured network data. They are less suitable for hierarchies or flowcharts, where Dagre or hierarchical layouts produce cleaner results.
In TopoKit, the force layout runs in O(n log n) using Barnes-Hut and supports off-main-thread execution via the Web Worker layout runner.
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