Enhancing support for DOT file syntax

[iamdarksorcerer]

Hi,
I am working on a ROS plugin for graph visualization (FSMS, Behavior Trees, UML, state charts etc... ) at Cogniteam.

We are currently extending the support for DOT the file format in node_item.py(qt_dotgraph).
The goal is to enable various shapes, properties, clusters and layouts.

1. Would you be interested in integrating such code into qt_dotgraph ?
2. Hierarchy seems not fully supported. Currently it seems the best option is plotting each sub-graph separately and consider the bounding box received in the parent graph, but this strongly relates to the fact that our graphs have no edges between sub-graphs.
   What do you guys think is the best option in DOT and QT to support hierarchies.

Thanks.

[dirk-thomas]

Any enhancement for qt_dotgraph is welcome.

The goal of the package is to be able to use dot for performing the layout and then transform the result into a QGraphicsScene in order to utilizes Qts infrastructure for hover effects etc. Currently it only supports a small set of primitive (the ones required for rqt_dep / rqt_graph) and e.g. lacks the ability to "track" entities in the graph (identify which Qt item is equates to which input node into dot).