Building Real-Time Diagrams with React Flow

React Flow gave me a solid foundation for the AV suite's canvas: nodes, edges, panning, zooming, and selection out of the box. That let me spend my time on the domain — equipment placement, rack elevations, and signal-flow rules — instead of reinventing graph mechanics.

Custom nodes are where the product lives. Each equipment type renders its own node with ports, IDs, and metadata, and edges carry wire and connector classification used downstream for cable schedules.

Persistence and export are the unglamorous finale: serializing the graph to a stable schema and rendering it to crisp SVG/PDF so engineers get real, printable documentation.