Hierarchic Layout

A hierarchic layout highlights the main direction or flow within a directed model. The entities of a model are placed in hierarchically arranged layers such that most of the relationships of the model show the same overall orientation (e.g., top-to-bottom). Additionally, the ordering of the entities within each layer is chosen in such a way that the number of relationship crossings is small.

A hierarchic layout is useful for models that depict workflows, database modeling, and process modeling.