Drawing Euler diagrams with circles

Abstract

Euler diagrams are a popular and intuitive visualization tool which are used in a wide variety of application areas, including biological and medical data analysis. As with other data visualization methods, such as graphs, bar charts, or pie charts, the automated generation of an Euler diagram from a suitable data set would be advantageous, removing the burden of manual data analysis and the subsequent task of drawing an appropriate diagram. Various methods have emerged that automatically draw Euler diagrams from abstract descriptions of them. One such method draws some, but not all, abstract descriptions using only circles. We extend that method so that more abstract descriptions can be drawn with circles, allowing sets to be represented by multiple curves. Furthermore, we show how to transform any ‘undrawable’ abstract description into a drawable one by adding in extra zones. Thus, given any abstract description, our method produces a drawing using only circles. A software implementation of the method is available for download.