| Category | Parameter | DrawPed | ped_draw | pedigreejs | HaploForge | Madeline 2.0 PDE (web version) | HaploPainter | Progeny Pedigree Builder |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access | URL | https://www.genecascade.org/DrawPed/ | https://peddraw.github.io/ | https://ccge-boadicea.github.io/pedigreejs/ | https://mtekman.github.io/haploforge/ | https://madeline.med.umich.edu/madeline/webservice.php | Download from https://sourceforge.net/projects/haplopainter/ | https://pedigree.progenygenetics.com/ |
| Reference | Schönberger J, Steinhaus R, Seelow D. Drawing human pedigree charts with DrawPed. Nucleic Acids Res. Published online May 10, 2024. doi:10.1093/nar/gkae336 | Velinder M, Lee D, Marth G. ped_draw: pedigree drawing with ease. BMC Bioinformatics. 2020;21(1):569. Published 2020 Dec 9. doi:10.1186/s12859-020-03917-4 | Carver T, Cunningham AP, Babb de Villiers C, et al. pedigreejs: a web-based graphical pedigree editor. Bioinformatics. 2018;34(6):1069-1071. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btx705 | Tekman M, Medlar A, Mozere M, Kleta R, Stanescu H. HaploForge: a comprehensive pedigree drawing and haplotype visualization web application. Bioinformatics. 2017;33(24):3871-3877. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btx510 | Trager EH, Khanna R, Marrs A, et al. Madeline 2.0 PDE: a new program for local and web-based pedigree drawing. Bioinformatics. 2007;23(14):1854-1856. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btm242 | Thiele H, Nürnberg P. HaploPainter: a tool for drawing pedigrees with complex haplotypes. Bioinformatics. 2005;21(8):1730-1732. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/bth488 | No publication. Pedigrees were constructed and drawn using (Progeny Clinical Version N/Progeny Lab Version N) (Progeny Genetics LLC, Aliso Viejo, CA, www.progenygenetics.com) | |
| Chart drawing capabilities | Enforces logic (e.g. mating between a biologically female and a biologically male person) | yes | no (mating between partners of the same sex) | no (changing a parent's sex causes crash) | partly (export of pedfile with one parent possible) | mostly (yes unless editing takes places directly in the data table) | yes | partly (parent can have unknown sex) |
| Adheres to standards (e.g. male left in mating) as proposed by Bennett et al. | yes | partly (see symbols, lines are not centered and scenarios possible where generations are not vertically stacked, male parent at any position) | partly (unconnected individuals possible, sometimes male is right in mating, diagonal lines) | partly (correct positioning of symbols is not enforced) | partly (males not always left in mating) | yes (when selected in the options) | partly (possible to have siblings without parents, unconnected individuals, male left in mating can be selected as an option) | |
| Symbols adhere to standards | mostly (differing: miscarriage) | no (ovals and rectangles instead of circles and squares) | mostly (miscarriage/ termination/ stillbirth symbols not marked as deceased) | yes (but unknown sex cannot be drawn) | yes | yes | yes | |
| One person can have multiple partners | up to 2 | theoretically yes, practically makes the chart unreadable | up to 2 | yes | yes | yes | yes | |
| Ensures no overlapping lines (e.g. with multiple partners) | yes | no | yes | no | yes (up to 4 partners) | no | no | |
| Consanguineous union can be drawn | yes | no | yes | yes | only with import of Madeline formatted file | yes | no | |
| Consanguineous union is detected automatically | yes | n.a. | yes | no | only with import of Madeline formatted file | yes | n.a. | |
| Generation-spanning parents can be drawn | no | no (the pedigree chart is not readable) | yes (with diagonal lines) | no (the pedigree chart is not readable) | only with import of Madeline formatted file | yes (by duplicating IDs) | n.a. | |
| Can draw parameters, which are not found in pedigree files (e.g. miscarriage, death, proband, consanguineous mating, adoption, twins) | partly (not adoption, twins) | no | partly (not proband, not explicit consanguinity) | no | partly (twins, proband, deceased) | yes | yes (additionally including divorce, infertile unions) | |
| Automatic sorting of children by age | no (cannot enter age) | no (cannot enter age) | no | no (cannot enter age) | yes | no (cannot enter age) | no (cannot enter age) | |
| Multiple traits | no | no | yes | no | yes | partly (different diagnoses possible, but each person only gets one diagnosis) | yes | |
| Multiple families in one pedigree chart | no | yes | no | yes | yes | no | yes | |
| Usability and interoperability | Templates or examples are provided on the webpage | yes | partly (one example) | yes | partly (only for haplotypes from different sources, not simple pedigrees) | no (none of the provided examples work) | yes | no |
| Supports import of pedfiles | yes | no ("paste ped file" does not accept standard pedigree files without a header) | yes | no | no (errors) | yes | no | |
| Checks validity of pedfiles | yes | yes | yes | n.a. | n.a. | yes | n.a. | |
| Supports export of pedfiles | yes | manual copy&paste | no (Clicking on "save" outputs a json) | yes (unless there is a javascript error) | no (different format) | yes (with extra columns) | no | |
| Supports real-time editing of pedfile as text | yes | yes | no | no | no (but editing in their format is possible) | no | no | |
| Supports export of pedigree chart as image | yes | yes | yes | no | yes | yes | yes | |
| Supports export of pedigree chart as a scalable image (SVG) | yes | yes | yes | n.a. | yes | yes | no (only png) | |
| Interactive features | Manual creation of pedigree charts | yes | no | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Interactive editing of the pedigree chart (with mouse clicks) | yes | no | yes | partly (only when drawing from scratch, not after importing linkage files) | partly (some options only available by editing the data table) | yes | yes | |
| Manually move individuals in the chart with drag&drop | no | no | no | yes | no | yes | yes | |
| Collaboration | Editing from different computers | yes | no | no | no | no | does not apply | no |
| Technical considerations | Open source | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | no |
| Latest update | 2024 (GitLab) | 2022 (GitHub) | 2023 (GitHub) | 2021 (GitLab) | 2023 (GitHub) | 2013 (Sourceforge) | unknown | |
| Programmatic access to the webpage possible and documented | yes (sample script available to generate pedigree charts from multi-ped files) | no | yes (integration and configuration with JavaScript) | no | no | n.a. | no |