Drawing Graphs in Euler Diagrams

We describe a method for drawing graph-enhanced Euler diagrams using a three stage method. The first stage is to lay out the underlying Euler diagram using a multicriteria optimizing system. The second stage is to find suitable locations for nodes in the zones of the Euler diagram using a force based method. The third stage is to minimize edge crossings and total edge length by swapping the location of nodes that are in the same zone with a multicriteria hill climbing method. We show a working version of the software that draws spider diagrams. Spider diagrams represent logical expressions by superimposing graphs upon an Euler diagram. This application requires an extra step in the drawing process because the embedded graphs only convey information about the connectedness of nodes and so a spanning tree must be chosen for each maximally connected component. Similar notations to Euler diagrams enhanced with graphs are common in many applications and our method is generalizable to drawing Hypergraphs represented in the subset standard, or to drawing Higraphs where edges are restricted to connecting with only atomic nodes.