Many real world graphs have small world characteristics, that is, they have a small diameter compared to the number of nodes and exhibit a local cluster structure. Examples are social networks, software structures, bibliographic references and biological neural nets. Their high connectivity makes both finding a pleasing layout and a suitable clustering hard. In this paper we present a method to create scalable, interactive visualizations of small world graphs, allowing the user to inspect local clusters while maintaining a global overview of the entire structure. The visualization method uses a combination of both semantical and geometrical distortions, while the layout is generated by a spring embedder algorithm using a recently developed force model. We use a cross referenced database of 500 artists as a running example.
Index Terms:
Graph Visualization, Graph Drawing, Clustering, Small World Graphs
Citation:
Frank van Ham, Jarke J. van Wijk, "Interactive Visualization of Small World Graphs," infovis, pp.199-206, 2004 IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis 2004), 2004