Network Visualization

For more then half a year we are running a research project about social networks within the blogosphere. The social network analysis is only one step to get information about the topic flow within a certain blog networks. We used Technorati as a source for the detection of the blog networks using a snow ball approach and than crawled the found blog nodes to identify the network edges. So far we have five sample networks analyzed ranging from 300 to 14'000 nodes with more than 200'000 edges.
One task within the project is the visualization of these networks with appropriate tools that enable the easy access to the gathered information. Various levels of detail are needed to extract and highlight different network parameter and make them easily understandable. Therefore I did a research on current tools available.

• BlogViz
  http://www.blogviz.com/blogviz/
  Blogviz is a flash driven visualization model for mapping the transmission and internal structure of top links across the blogosphere. It explores the idea of meme propagation by assuming a parallel with the spreading of most cited URLs in daily weblog entries.
  
  Blogviz is currently a portrait of blogosphere’s topic activity during the first 64 days of 2005. Nevertheless, the model was developed to easily incorporate different timeframes. Blogviz will continue to expand in the future, to the possible point of including real-time data.
• BINViz
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/binviz/
  BINViz(Bidirectional Interactive Network Visualization) is a JavaScript library for network and graph visualization. The goal of this tool is to provide a better way to visualize complex graphical models and the underlying data in a web-based environment
• Commetrix
  http://www.commetrix.de
  Commetrix is an exploratory analysis tool for dynamic network data. Its connectors can conveniently read all sources of accessible network data, like co-authorship or business process networks. Still, the focus is on analyzing evolving patterns of electronic communication, including e mail, discussions, voice over IP, and instant messaging.
• Condor (TecFlow)
  http://tiger.soberit.hut.fi/virtualbrownbag/tiki-index.php?page=GettingStartedWithCondor Condor computes and visualizes the structure of social communication networks by automatically generating interactive movies of communication flows.
• Cytoscape
  http://cytoscape.org/
  This tool, based on GINY and Piccolo (see below), is under active use by the bioinformatics community and highly recommended by Bio2RDF.org
• FreeMind
  http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
  FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map) software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations.
• Gephi
  http://www.gephi.org/
  Gephi is an open-source software for graph and network analysis. It uses a 3D render engine to display large graphs in real-time and to speed up the exploration. Gephi is based on a visualize-and-manipulate paradigm which allow any user to discover networks and data properties. Moreover, it is designed to follow the chain of a case study, from data file to nice printable maps.
• GINY
  http://csbi.sourceforge.net/
  GINY implements a very innovative system for sub-graphing and allows for stunning visuals. GINY is open source, provides a number of layout algorithms, and is designed to be a very intuitive API. Uses Piccolo
• Graphviz
  http://www.graphviz.org/ Graphviz is a set of graph drawing tools and libraries. It supports hierarchical and mass-spring drawings; although the tools are scalable, their emphasis is on making very good drawings of reasonably-sized graphs. Package components include batch layout filters and interactive editors
• GUESS
  http://graphexploration.cond.org/
  GUESS is an exploratory data analysis and visualization tool for graphs and networks. The system contains a domain-specific embedded language called Gython (an extension of Python, or more specifically Jython) which supports the operators and syntactic sugar necessary for working on graph structures in an intuitive manner. An interactive interpreter binds the text that you type in the interpreter to the objects being visualized for more useful integration. GUESS also offers a visualization front end that supports the export of static images and dynamic movies.
  Its a very flexible due to an own language that allows the construction of small application without much coding.
• HyperGraph
  http://hypergraph.sourceforge.net/
  HyperGraph is an open source project that provides Java code to work with hyperbolic geometry and especially with hyperbolic trees. It provides a very extensible API to visualize hyperbolic geometry, to handle graphs and to layout hyperbolic trees
• Hypertree
  http://hypertree.sourceforge.net/
  Hypertree is an open source project very similar to the HyperGraph project. As the name implies, Hypertree is restricted to hyperbolic trees
• InfoVis
  The http://www.lri.fr/%7Efekete/InfovisToolkit/
  InfoVis Toolkit is an interactive graphics toolkit written in Java to ease the development of Information Visualization applications and components
• InFlow
  http://www.orgnet.com/inflow3.html
  InFlow 3.1 performs network analysis AND network visualization in one integrated product -- no passing files back and forth between different programs like other tools. What is mapped in one window is measured in the other window -- what you see, is what you measure. InFlow excels at what-if analysis -- change the network, get new metrics -- just 2 clicks of the mouse. InFlow is designed to work with Microsoft Office and the WWW. You do not need to be an expert in statistics to use InFlow.
• IsaViz
  http://www.w3.org/2001/11/IsaViz/
  IsaViz is a visual environment for browsing and authoring Resource Description Framework (RDF) models represented as graphs
• IVC Software Framework
  http://iv.slis.indiana.edu/sw/
  The InfoVis Cyberinfrastructure (IVC) software framework is a set of libraries that provide a simple and uniform programming-interface to algorithms and user-interface to end-users by leveraging the power of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP)
• JGraph
  http://www.jgraph.com/
  According to its developers, this is the most powerful, easy-to-use, feature-rich and standards-compliant open source graph component available for Java. Many implementation options shown on their screenshots page.
• JUNG
  http://jung.sourceforge.net/
  The Java Universal Network/Graph Framework is a software library that provides a common and extendible language for the modeling, analysis, and visualization of data that can be represented as a graph or network. It is written in Java, which allows JUNG-based applications to make use of the extensive built-in capabilities of the Java API, as well as those of other existing third-party Java libraries. RDF Gravity uses JUNG.
• LGL
  http://lgl.sourceforge.net/
  LGL (Large Graph Library) is a compendium of applications for making the visualization of large networks and trees tractable. LGL was specifically motivated by the need to make the visualization and exploration of large biological networks more accessible
• LibSea
  http://www.caida.org/tools/visualization/libsea/
  LibSea is both a file format and a Java library for representing large directed graphs on disk and in memory. Scalability to graphs with as many as one million nodes has been the primary goal. Additional goals have been expressiveness, compactness, and support for application-specific conventions and policies
• MindRaider
  http://mindraider.sourceforge.net/ MindRaider is Semantic Web outliner. It aims to connect the tradition of outline editors with emerging technologies. MindRaider mission is to organize not only the content of your hard drive but also your cognitive base and social relationships in a way that enables quick navigation, concise representation and inferencing.
• Mondrian
  http://rosuda.org/Mondrian/
  Mondrian is a general purpose statistical data-visualization system written in Java. It features outstanding visualization techniques for categorical data, geographical data and large datasets
• Morcego - 3D Network Browser
  http://morcego.arca.ime.usp.br
  
• NetworkX
  https://networkx.lanl.gov/wiki
  NetworkX (NX) is a Python package for the creation, manipulation, and study of the structure, dynamics, and functions of complex networks.
• NodeXL
  http://www.codeplex.com/nodexl
  NodeXL is an Excel 2007 template for viewing and analyzing network graphs, along with a set of .NET Framework 3.5 class libraries that can be used to add network graphs to custom applications. NodeXL used to be called ".NetMap".
• OpenDX
  http://www.opendx.org/
  OpenDX is a uniquely powerful, full-featured software package for the visualization of scientific, engineering and analytical data. OpenDX is the open source software version of IBM’s Visualization Data Explorer Product. The last release of Data Explorer from IBM was 3.1.4B; the open source version is based on this version
• Otter
  http://www.caida.org/tools/visualization/otter/
  Otter is a historical CAIDA tool used for visualizing arbitrary network data that can be expressed as a set of nodes, links or paths. Otter was developed to handle visualization tasks for a wide variety of Internet data, including data sets on topology, workload, performance, and routing. Otter is in maintenance rather than development mode
• Pajek
  http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/pajek/
  Pajek (Slovene word for Spider) is a program, for Windows, for analysis and visualization of large networks. It is freely available for noncommercial use, and has been called by others the “best available”. See also the PDF reference manual for Pajek
• Piccolo
  http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/piccolo/
  Piccolo is a toolkit that supports the development of 2D structured graphics programs, in general, and Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs), in particular. It is used to develop full-featured graphical applications in Java and C#, with visual effects such as zooming, animation and multiple representations
• Prefuse
  http://prefuse.sourceforge.net/
  Prefuse is a user interface toolkit for building highly interactive visualizations of structured and unstructured data. This includes any form of data that can be represented as a set of entities (or nodes) possibly connected by any number of relations (or edges). Examples of data supported by prefuse include hierarchies (organization charts, taxonomies, file systems), networks (computer networks, social networks, web site linkage) and even non-connected collections of data (timelines, scatterplots). See also Jeff Heer, the author of Prefuse (http://jheer.org/">http://jheer.org/)
• RDF Gravity
  http://semweb.salzburgresearch.at/apps/rdf-gravity/
  RDF Gravity is a tool for visualising RDF/OWL Graphs/ ontologies. It is implemented by using the JUNG Graph API and Jena semantic web toolkit
• SemaSpace
  http://residence.aec.at/didi/FLweb/
  SemaSpace is a fast and easy to use graph editor for large knowledge networks
• SkyRails
  http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~wyos/skyrails/
  Skyrails is a social network (or any graph really) visualization system. It has a built in programming language for processing (as far as visualisation attributes goes) the graph and its attributes. The system is not only aimed at expert users though, because through the scripting languages menus can be built and the system can be used by any users.
• SoNIA
  http://www.stanford.edu/group/sonia/
  SoNIA is a Java-based package for visualizing dynamic or longitudinal "network" data. By dynamic, we mean that in addition to information about the relations (ties) between various entities (actors, nodes) there is also information about when these relations occur, or at least the relative order in which they occur.
• SONIVIS
  http://www.sonivis.org
  SONIVIS:Tool is a Java-based, open-source application, which is based on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP). The user interface is organized into three main perspectives: Analysis, Manipulation, and Statistics. Besides various Wiki and network analysis metrics, the tool provides predefined and user-definable graphical analyses. It offers a quick overview on current Wiki states or developments, e.g. author activity levels, edit growth, or collaboration index.
• Starlight
  http://starlight.pnl.gov/
  Starlight represents the first attempt to marry a variety of different types of "conventional" (and novel) information visualization capabilities into a single, integrated, information system capable of supporting a wide range of analytical functions. Further, Starlight visualization tools employ a common XML-based information model capable of effectively capturing multiple types of relationships that may exist among information of disparate kinds. Together, these features enable the concurrent visual analysis of a wide variety of information types. The result is a system capable of both accelerating and improving comprehension of the contents of large, complex information collections.
• TouchGraph
  http://touchgraph.sourceforge.net/
  TouchGraph is a set of interfaces for Graph Visualization using spring-layout and focus+context techniques. Current applications include a utility for organizing links, a visual Wiki Browser, and a Google Graph Browser which uses the Google API; see also the commercial site at: http://www.touchgraph.com/
• TreeMap
  http://treemap.sourceforge.net/
  TreeMap is a tool for treemap visualisation
• Tulip
  http://www.tulip-software.org/
  Tulip is a software system dedicated to the visualization of huge graphs. It manages graphs with up to 1 M elements (node and edges) on a personal computer. Its SuperGraph technology architecture provides the following features: 3D visualizations, 3D modifications, plugin support, support for clusters and navigation, automatic graph drawing, automatic clustering of graphs, automatic selection of elements, and automatic coloring of elements according to a metric
• visone
  http://visone.info/
  visone is a long-term research project, in which models and algorithms to integrate and advance the analysis and visualization of social networks are being developed. An important part of visone is the design and implementation of a software tool intended for research and teaching in social network analysis. It is specifically designed to allow experts and novices alike to apply innovative and advanced visual methods with ease and accuracy.
• Visual Browser
  http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/projekty/vizualni_lexikon
  Visual Browser is a Java application that can visualise the data in RDF schemes
• VisualComplexity
  http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/
  VisualComplexity.com intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web. I truly hope this space can inspire, motivate and enlighten any person doing research on this field.
• vizster
  http://jheer.org/vizster/
  Vizster is an interactive visualization tool for online social networks, allowing exploration of the community structure of social networking services such as friendster.com, tribe.net, and orkut. Such services provide means by which users can publicly articulate their mutual "friendship" in the form of friendship links, forming an undirected graph in which users are the nodes and friendship links are the edges. These services also allow users to describe themselves in a profile, including attributes such as age, marital status, sexual orientation, and various interests. These services profess any number of goals, ranging from supporting dating and creating communities of shared interest to facilitating new business connections. Newman provides a wonderful overview of the statistical properties of such networks and boyd describes emergent social phenomena surrounding social networking services.
• Walrus
  http://www.caida.org/tools/visualization/walrus/
  Walrus is a tool for interactively visualizing large directed graphs in three-dimensional space. By employing a fisheye-like distortion, it provides a display that simultaneously shows local detail and the global context. It is technically possible to display graphs containing a million nodes or more, but visual clutter, occlusion, and other factors can diminish the effectiveness of Walrus as the number of nodes, or the degree of their connectivity, increases. Thus, in practice, Walrus is best suited to visualizing moderately sized graphs that are nearly trees. A graph with a few hundred thousand nodes and only a slightly greater number of links is likely to best target size
• XFN Graph
  http://xfngraph.sourceforge.net/
  XFN Graph is a tool for visualising the relationships between website authors, primarily bloggers who mark up their blogrolls with XFN markup. XFN stands for the XHTML Friends Network, and is a simple way to describe relationships between people within the framework of HTML. XFN Graph uses this information to draw spider diagrams showing how sites link to one another. You can then see at a glance how you and your friends and acquaintances connect to others, and perhaps find new friends who share similar interests.
• xSiteable
  http://xsiteable.sourceforge.net/
  xSiteable is a complete small-to-medium-size site development kit created in XSLT, with a PHP administration package.
• Zoomgraph
  http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/projects/graphs/zoom.html
  A zoomable interface to large graphs allowing for the visualization of graphs and networks on an infinite plane with infinite (smooth) zoom. Try the applet to get a sense of this. A database driven system that allows nodes and edges to include attributes beyond basic display features (we support continuous, categorical, and binary attributes). Zoomgraph lets you represent those features in a database and through a powerful interpreted, embedded language allows you to easily manipulate the graph based on those features.

References

http://www.mkbergman.com/?p=414 http://www.netvis.org/resources.php http://ictlogy.net/wiki/index.php?title=Data_Visualization

 

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