  Force-directed algorithms are widely used for visualizing graphs. However,
these algorithms are computationally expensive in producing good quality
layouts for complex graphs. The layout quality is largely influenced by
execution time and methods' input parameters especially for large complex
graphs. The snapshots of visualization generated from these algorithms are
useful in presenting the current view or a past state of an information on
timeslices. Therefore, researchers often need to make a trade-off between the
quality of visualization and the selection of appropriate force-directed
algorithms. In this paper, we evaluate the quality of snapshots generated from
7 force-directed algorithms in terms of number of edge crossing and the
standard deviations of edge length. Our experimental results showed that KK,
FA2 and DH algorithms cannot produce satisfactory visualizations for large
graphs within the time limit. KK-MS-DS algorithm can process large and planar
graphs but it does not perform well for graphs with low average degrees. KK-MS
algorithm produces better visualizations for sparse and non-clustered graphs
than KK-MS-DS algorithm.
