Mr Michael Wybrow - Researcher Profile

Biography

I work as a Research Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. I am a member of the Adaptive Diagrams and Documents Group, which is in turn part of the Centre for Research into Intelligent Systems (CRIS).

My research interests include geometric layout constraints, software usability, graphical user interfaces, text and diagram layout, connector routing, and information visualisation.

I am the primary author of the constraint-based diagram editor Dunnart, and the maintainer of the Adaptagrams constraint-based layout libraries.

Related Links:

• Michael Wybrow's webpage

Research & Supervision Interests

Unfortunately, placement and layout tools in most existing diagram editors have only a one-off effect. Diagram authors are forced to use these tools repeatedly to manually maintain placement and layout relationships to suit the desired drawing style. These relationships (or constraints) might be things like an alignment or distribution relationship or connectors between objects, each of which need to be maintained as the user modifies and interacts with the diagram. Using constraint-solving techniques it is now possible to provide tools for automatically maintaining such geometric constraints during editing. My interest and research focus lies with the usability of such tools and techniques within interactive diagram editors. I'm interested in the metaphor that should be used to describe them to the user, the interface they should be given, and the behaviour that these tools should have during interaction.

Part of my research has been examining the usefulness of placement tools (such as alignment or distribution) in existing diagram editors (once-off, one-way constraints). I has evaluated the usability of these and compared them with new versions based on multi-way constraints, written to address some of the usability issues found with existing tools.

I have looked techniques for doing fast incremental object-avoiding connector routing for use in interactive editors. We do this by dynamically maintaining a visibility graph and using using a penalty function to generate routes that with desired aesthetic properties.

My current research involves integrating constraint-based graph layout with interactive diagram editors. We have designed a continuous network layout model where the diagram editor constantly improves the layout while it is being edited. It maintains constraints placed on the layout by the user, and preserves the topology of the layout—preventing shapes from crossing other shapes or connectors. The user is able to manually alter the topology by holding down the ALT key, to pause the automatic layout.

All of my research is implented in Dunnart, a prototype constraint-based diagram editor. Dunnart was written as a testbed for both prototyping new tools and well as conducting usability testing and benchmarking.

Qualifications

COMPUTER SCIENCE

Institution: Monash University

Year awarded: 2008

COMPUTER SCIENCE (HONOURS)

Institution: University of Melbourne

Year awarded: 2003

Publications

Book Chapters

Bachmaier, C., Brandenburg, F., Effinger, P., Gutwenger, C., Katajainen, J., Klein, K., Sponemann, M., Stegmaier, M., Wybrow, M.J., 2012, The open graph archive: A community-driven effort, in Graph Drawing: 19th International Symposium, Revised Selected Papers, eds Marc van Kreveld and Bettina Speckmann, Springer, Berlin Germany, pp. 435-440.

Journal Articles

Marriott, K.G., Purchase, H., Wybrow, M.J., Goncu, C., 2012, Memorability of visual features in network diagrams, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics [P], vol 18, issue 12, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Los Alamitos CA USA, pp. 2477-2485.

Stivala, A., Wybrow, M., Wirth, A., Whisstock, J., Stuckey, P., 2011, Automatic generation of protein structure cartoons with Pro-origami, Bioinformatics [P], vol 27, issue 23, Oxford University Press, Oxford England, pp. 3315-3316.

Schreiber, F., Dwyer, T., Marriott, K.G., Wybrow, M.J., 2009, A generic algorithm for layout of biological networks, BMC Bioinformatics [P], vol 10, Biomed Central Ltd, London England, pp. 1-12.

Wybrow, M.J., Marriott, K.G., McIver, L.K., Stuckey, P.J., 2008, Comparing usability of one-way and multi-way constraints for diagram editing, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, vol 14, issue 4, Association for Computing Machinery, New York NY USA, pp. 1-38.

Dwyer, T., Marriott, K.G., Schreiber, F., Stuckey, P.J., Woodward, M., Wybrow, M.J., 2008, Exploration of networks using overview+detail with constraint-based cooperative layout, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol 14, issue 6, IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos CA USA, pp. 1293-1300.

Dwyer, T.G., Marriott, K.G., Wybrow, M.J., 2008, Interactive, constraint-based layout of engineering diagrams, Electronic Communications of the EASST, vol 13, Public Knowledge Project, University of British Columbia, pp. 1-8.

Conference Proceedings

Wybrow, M.J., Marriott, K.G., Stuckey, P.J., 2012, Orthogonal hyperedge routing, Diagrammatic Representation and Inference: 7th International Conference, Proceedings, 2 July 2012 to 6 July 2012, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany, pp. 51-64.

Albrecht, M., Kerren, A., Klein, K., Kohlbacher, O., Mutzel, P., Paul, W., Schreiber, F., Wybrow, M.J., 2010, On open problems in biological network visualization, Proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on Graph Drawing, 22 September 2009 to 25 September 2009, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany, pp. 256-267.

Wybrow, M.J., Marriott, K.G., Stuckey, P.J., 2010, Orthogonal connector routing, Proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on Graph Drawing, 22 September 2009 to 25 September 2009, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany, pp. 219-231.

Dwyer, T.G., Marriott, K.G., Wybrow, M.J., 2009, Dunnart: A constraint-based network diagram authoring tool, Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Graph Drawing (GD 2008), 21 September 2008 to 24 September 2008, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany, pp. 420-431.

Braganza, C.M., Marriott, K.G., Moulder, P., Wybrow, M.J., Dwyer, T.G., 2009, Scrolling behaviour with single- and multi-column layout, Proceedings of the 18th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW'09), 20 April 2009 to 24 April 2009, Association for Computing Machinery Inc, Danvers MA USA, pp. 831-840.

Dwyer, T.G., Marriott, K.G., Wybrow, M.J., 2009, Topology preserving constrained graph layout, Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Graph Drawing (GD 2008), 21 September 2008 to 24 September 2008, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany, pp. 230-241.

Dwyer, T.G., Marriott, K.G., Wybrow, M.J., 2007, Integrating edge routing into force-directed layout, Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Graph Drawing (GD 2006), 18 September 2006 to 20 September 2006, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany, pp. 8-19.

Wybrow, M.J., Marriott, K.G., Stuckey, P.J., 2006, Incremental connector routing, Proceedings of the 13th International Symposium on Graph Drawing (GD 2005), 12 September 2005 to 14 September 2005, Springer-Verlag, Germany, pp. 446-457.

Wybrow, M.J., Marriott, K.G., McIver, L.K., Stuckey, P.J., 2003, The usefulness of constraints for diagram editing, Proceedings of the 2003 Australasian Computer Human Interaction Conference, 26 November 2003 to 28 November 2003, Information Environments Program, Qld Australia, pp. 192-201.

Grants

Title:

Flexible User-Guided Network Layout for Biomedical Applications.

Investigators:

Wybrow, M

Funding:

(2011 - 2015). Australian Research Council (ARC).

Title:

Joint development of layout alogrithms for SBGN maps in SBGN-ED.

Investigators:

Marriott, K, Wybrow, M

Funding:

(2012 - 2016). Group of Eight / DAAD Australia.