Mental Map Models for Edges

When drawing a graph, the user´s actions on the graph may lead to a drawing which is very different from the drawing before the interaction. The established aesthetic criteria are not sufficient to allow the users to fully track the changes to the graph. The mental map of nodes and edges is lost. We have taken the existing work, which focused on mental maps for nodes, and extended it naturally to the edges. This may be useful in applications where the nodes are stable and only the edges are redrawn. We present two models that allow edges to be drawn to preserve the mental map as much as possible. Our preliminary tests indicate that the produced edge drawing is similar to the original one and the other aesthetic criteria have mostly been preserved.