- 5 minutes to read

Mapify Rendering

New 7.4.0

The Mapify Rendering modal delivers a live, interactive, physics-based graph of how any entity in your Nodinite CMDB connects to the world around it. Unlike a static diagram, the graph is alive—nodes repel and attract each other, you can drag them into position, and you can pan and zoom freely. Open it from any entity detail page to explore relationships hands-on.

✅ Physics simulation automatically surfaces clusters and isolated entities
✅ Drag individual nodes to any position—the rest of the graph adapts
✅ Reveal soft-deleted entities alongside active ones for historical investigation
✅ Print or export to SVG, PNG, or JPG directly from the interface
✅ Full keyboard shortcut support for efficient navigation

Mapify Rendering requires a Mapify license. Contact Nodinite Sales to enable this feature.
For a static diagram without a Mapify license, see Mermaid Rendering.

Mapify View Mode
The Mapify Rendering modal showing a BPM process


Interactive Force-Directed Graph

The graph positions nodes automatically using a physics simulation that pushes unrelated nodes apart and pulls connected nodes together. The result is a natural-looking layout that surfaces clusters and isolated entities without any manual arrangement.

What You Can Do on the Graph

  • Drag nodes — click and hold any node to drag it to a better position; the rest of the graph adjusts around it.
  • Pan — click and drag on the background to move the entire graph.
  • Zoom — use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out, centred on the cursor.

The Mapify Rendering modal is best when you want to explore relationships interactively—pulling nodes around, zooming into a cluster, and building an intuitive mental model of how things connect—rather than reading a fixed layout.


Edge Labels

Toggle the Labels button to show or hide the text on relationship lines.

  • Labels on — see the type or name of each connection, useful when the nature of the relationship matters, for example "depends on", "deployed to", or "owned by".
  • Labels off — a cleaner view that is easier to read when you primarily want to understand the shape of the graph rather than the detail of each connection.

Labels are off by default to keep the initial view uncluttered, especially for entities with many connections.


Show Deleted Entities

Click the Deleted toggle (red trash-can button) to reveal entities that have been soft-deleted in the CMDB alongside their active relationships.

Use this when:

  • Investigating historical configurations or ghost dependencies
  • Auditing what was removed during a clean-up exercise
  • Tracing the origin of an unexpected relationship that no longer appears in normal views

Deleted entities are visually distinguished in the graph so you can tell at a glance which nodes are active and which are historic.


Fullscreen Mode

Click the expand icon in the modal header to maximise the graph to fill the entire browser window. Click compress to return to the standard large-dialogue size.

Complex graphs with many nodes benefit greatly from the extra canvas space. Fullscreen gives you the maximum room to spread nodes out, making dense graphs far easier to read and navigate.


Refresh

Click the Refresh button (rotating arrows) to reload the latest relationship data from the server and re-draw the graph from scratch. The icon spins while data is being fetched.

Use refresh when you or a colleague have recently updated relationships in the CMDB, to ensure you are looking at the current state rather than a snapshot from when you first opened the modal.


Print

Click the Print button to send the current graph view to your browser's print dialogue. All surrounding page chrome is hidden automatically so only the graph itself is printed.

Useful for architecture reviews, handover documentation, stakeholder meetings, incident reviews, or any time you need a snapshot of the current relationship map on paper or as a PDF.


Download as Image

Click the Download button to save the graph as a file. Three formats are available:

Format Best for
SVG Documentation, wikis, and situations where the image needs to remain sharp at any size. Vector format means it scales without loss.
PNG Presentations, Jira/DevOps tickets, emails, or any context where a standard image format is expected.
JPG Embedding in Word documents or other tools where background transparency is not needed and a smaller file size is preferable.

A spinner overlay appears while the image is generating. You can cancel at any time if it takes longer than expected.


Entity Information Panel

When the entity has a description or a website URL stored in the CMDB, these are shown in a compact panel just below the modal header. The website link opens in a new tab.

You get immediate context about the entity at the centre of the graph—its purpose and any associated documentation link—without having to navigate to the entity's detail page.


Keyboard Shortcut

Press Escape at any time to close the modal.


Licensing

Mapify Rendering is a premium feature and requires a Mapify license. For static diagrams without a license, use Mermaid Rendering instead—it provides nine diagram types and export capabilities at no additional cost.

Contact Nodinite Sales to enable the Mapify license. Pricing varies with licensee turnover.


Next Step

Compare with static Mermaid Rendering
View Mode in Mapify Overview

Mapify Overview
Saved Views
Search and Discovery
Ownership and Team Management