Improve autoLayout for better readability

[juanrferia]

Hello,

I've been using structurizr extensively to model system architectures, and I really appreciate the power of generating diagrams automatically from a shared model.

I requently use the autolayout feature, which usually works well when diagrams have just a few elements and relationships. However, as diagrams become a bit more complex, the resulting layouts often end up with relationships crossing over elements or other relationthips, making it dificult to read.

In many cases, I find myself needing to manually reposition elements to achieve a layout that’s easier to understand.

While I understand that layouting is a complex topic, I believe this is an area where Structurizr could improve significantly. In the era of AI, I wonder whether the layout engine could be enhanced to better generate diagrams with autolayout.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Are there plans to improve the AutoLayout engine? Is there any way the community can contribute to improving this behavior?

Thanks again for all your work!

[dobesv]

From what I can gather, the layout engine is coming from either GraphViz or a library called Dagre. I can't quite tell when it uses one or the other yet. But I suppose if improvements can be made to the system used for auto-layout then structurizr could inherit those. Or perhaps there's a way to add more layout options that can be passed through to those layout engines as they are but still improving the automatic layout.