vis.uni-stuttgart.deDynamic Graph Visualization
Introduction
 |
Visualizing dynamic directed and weighted graphs with an additional hierarchical organization of the graph vertices is a challenging task. Many data dimensions have to be represented at the same time:
- the graph vertices
- the adjacency edges induced by the graph
- the weights of the adjacency edges
- the inclusion edges induced by the hierarchy
- the evolution of the graph over time
Traditional approaches use a time-to-time mapping and show the time-varying graph data as animated sequences of node-link diagrams. Though this visualization strategy is very intuitive it also has some drawbacks:
- if the graphs are very dense, i.e. have many edges, visual clutter occurs caused by many edge crossings
- animation leads to cognitive efforts for a viewer to preserve his mental map
- sophisticated layout algorithms are needed to circumwent the two former mentioned problems that have a high run time complexity
Research
In our research we avoid a time-to-time mapping and encode the time dimension into space instead. We use stacked graphical color coded elements to show weighted time-varying relations and we show links only implicitly by different orientations instead of direct explicit links as in node-link diagrams.
 |
 |
 |
Our approach allows to easily explore a time-varying graph data set for trends, countertrends, and anomalies and has many benefits:
- visual clutter is reduced by showing the links implicitly
- cognitive efforts are reduced and the mental map is preserved by using static images
- interactive features can easily be applied
- run time complexities are reduced and graphs can be added on-the-fly.
Publications
@article {09519fcc71,
author = {Burch, Michael and Diehl, Stephan},
title = {Visualizing Dynamic Compound Digraphs},
year = {2008},
journal = {Comput. Graph. Forum},
volume = {27},
number = {3},
pages = {823--830}
}