  There exist many orthogonal graph drawing algorithms that minimize edge
crossings or edge bends, however they produce unsatisfactory drawings in many
practical cases. In this paper we present a grid-based algorithm for drawing
orthogonal graphs with nodes of prescribed size. It distinguishes by creating
pleasant and compact drawings in relatively small running time. The main idea
is to minimize the total edge length that implicitly minimizes crossings and
makes the drawing easy to comprehend. The algorithm is based on combining local
and global improvements. Local improvements are moving each node to a new place
and swapping of nodes. Global improvement is based on constrained quadratic
programming approach that minimizes the total edge length while keeping node
relative positions.
