Terrastruct releases TALA diagram layout engine as open source
The orthogonal auto-layout algorithm is available under the MPL-2.0 licence through D2 v0.9.0, with support for automatic and selective node positioning.
Terrastruct has released TALA, its auto-layout algorithm for software architecture diagrams, as open source under the MPL-2.0 licence. The engine is bundled with D2 v0.9.0 and can be selected using the `--layout=tala` option.
TALA is designed primarily as an orthogonal layout engine, producing diagrams that can more closely resemble whiteboard arrangements than layouts that expand in a single direction. The D2 Documentation says it considers objectives including symmetry, median distance, flow and clustering related nodes.
The release supports selective positioning as well as fully automatic placement. In the supplied examples, users assign top and left coordinates to specified pinned nodes, while TALA positions the remaining nodes and containers automatically.
The project includes seven comparisons using real-world D2 project diagrams and 11 original positioning examples. Terrastruct says the comparisons use identical D2 source, compiler builds, styles, themes and explicit grid constraints, with only the layout engine changed.
The demonstrations are supplied by the project and do not quantify performance, adoption or gains against competing layout engines. Terrastruct also notes that TALA involves trade-offs.
TALA can be tested through D2 v0.9.0 or the client-side D2 web playground. The project credits Gavin Nishizawa for substantial contributions and Júlio César Batista for work on hierarchy algorithms and related areas.
