Graphs are abstract structures consisting of vertices connected by edges. Drawings of graphs are visualizations of the vertex relationships defined by the graph. The roots of graph drawing are in the ancient history, and nowadays drawings of graphs appear ubiquitously in scientific literature. The interest for automatic graph drawing arose in the 1960s and it has since developed into its own field of research.

This thesis looks through the background of graph drawing along with the key concepts involved. An overview of the algorithm development is presented, and a closer view on a group of algorithms known as the force-directed methods is taken. In force-directed methods, the graph is drawn using a metaphor of forces and energy from physics.

In the second part, aesthetical deficiencies in the previous force-directed methods are investigated, and improvements to amend these weaknesses are proposed. The improvements are made to a previously published method of Kamada and Kawai.

Finally, the effects of the improvements on the method’s performance are analyzed. The aesthetical results are shown by comparing drawings made using the improved method to the ones produced with the original method. Most graphs used in the comparison are either from real life applications or closely model graphs from real life.