TALA Is Open-Source
Terrastruct has open-sourced TALA, an auto-layout algorithm specifically designed for software architecture diagrams. The tool, which is now bundled with D2, focuses on orthogonal layouts and aesthetic graph-drawing principles to improve diagram readability.
Why it matters
Open-sourcing specialized layout engines provides developers with more flexible, high-quality tools for visualizing complex software systems, fostering community-driven improvements.
Following up on the announcement here , TALA (Terrastruct's AutoLayout Algorithm) is now open-source under the same license as D2 (MPL-2.0).
TALA is a novel autolayout algorithm designed with software architecture diagrams in mind. This means it's primarily an orthogonal layout engine, which more closely matches what you might find on whiteboards, rather than the DAG-based ones that grow in one direction. It blends ideas from different graph-drawing research papers (cited in source code) along with original techniques to achieve aesthetic diagrams. It considers multiple objectives of "aesthetic", including symmetry, median distance, flow, clustering of like nodes, and much more.
I'll keep the text short and lead with examples.
Please also note that TALA is not without tradeoffs.
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