The phase of placing the nodes is known to be one of the most complicated and hardest to understand from all the phases of the Sugiyama approach~\cite{sugiyama_methods_1981} for graph drawing.
Still it is one of the most important ones: Here the actual $x$ and $y$ coordinates are assigned to all the nodes.
Thus we develop an application that not only executes this phase, but also presents intermediate results to the user.

\enquote{\appname} takes as input a hierarchical graph, where all nodes have been assigned to ordered layers.
Then each stage of the node placing algorithm by Brandes and Köpf~\cite{brandes_fast_2001} can be executed step by step, either on user input or automatically with a certain delay.
After each step the current progress of the algorithm is displayed visually.

In chapter~\ref{ch:architecture} we provide an overview over the \appname 's internal architecture while chapter~\ref{ch:ui} presents and explains the graphical user interface.
To provide an overview of what is going on, chapter~\ref{ch:progress} lists features and their degree of completion.

\appname\ is currently a work in progress so keep in mind that any of the here presented screenshot, diagram or other information may be slightly outdated\footnote{even this one}.
Also note that some PDF viewers have problems with vector graphics exported from Visual Paradigm, so if you feel like there is a missing line in a class or component diagram, you are wrong.
You may want to use Internet Explorer 11, where this bug does not exist.