Visualizing DynamicWeighted Digraphs with Partial Links

Hansjörg Schmauder, Michael Burch, Daniel Weiskopf

2015

Abstract

Graphs are traditionally represented as node-link diagrams, but these typically suffer from visual clutter when they become denser, i.e. more vertices and edges are present in the data set. Partial link drawings have been introduced for node-link diagrams aiming at reducing visual clutter caused by link crossings. Although this concept was shown to perform well for some parameter settings, it has not been used for visually encoding dynamic weighted digraphs. In this paper we investigate the problem of visualizing time-varying graphs as one node-link diagram in a specific layout by exploiting the links as timelines. Partially drawn links are used to show the graph dynamics by splitting each link into as many segments as time steps have to be represented. Conventional 2D layout algorithms can be applied while simultaneously showing the evolution over time. Color-coded links represent the changing weights. We use tapered links to reduce possible overlaps at the link target nodes that would occur when using traditional arrow-based directed links. We experiment with different graph layouts and different numbers of data dimensions, i.e. number of vertices, edges, and time steps. We illustrate the usefulness of the technique in a case study investigating dynamic migration data.

References

  1. Archambault, D., Purchase, H. C., and Pinaud, B. (2011). Animation, small multiples, and the effect of mental map preservation in dynamic graphs. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 17(4):539-552.
  2. Beck, F., Burch, M., Diehl, S., and Weiskopf, D. (2014).
  3. Beck, F., Burch, M., Vehlow, C., Diehl, S., and Weiskopf, D. (2012). Rapid serial visual presentation in dynamic graph visualization. In Proceedings of VL/HCC, pages 185-192.
  4. Becker, R. A., Eick, S. G., and Wilks, A. R. (1995). Visualizing network data. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 1(1):16-28.
  5. Brandes, U. and Nick, B. (2011). Asymmetric Relations in Longitudinal Social Networks. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 17(12):2283- 2290.
  6. Bruckdorfer, T. and Kaufmann, M. (2012). Mad at edge crossings? Break the edges! In FUN, pages 40-50.
  7. Burch, M. and Diehl, S. (2008). TimeRadarTrees: Visualizing Dynamic Compound Digraphs. Computer Graphics Forum, 27(3):823-830.
  8. Burch, M., Fritz, M., Beck, F., and Diehl, S. (2010). TimeSpiderTrees: A novel visual metaphor for dynamic compound graphs. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, VL/HCC, pages 168-175.
  9. Burch, M., Schmauder, H., Panagiotidis, A., and Weiskopf, D. (2014). Partial link drawings for nodes, links, and regions of interest. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Visualisation, pages 53- 58.
  10. Burch, M., Vehlow, C., Beck, F., Diehl, S., and Weiskopf, D. (2011a). Parallel edge splatting for scalable dynamic graph visualization. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 17(12):2344- 2353.
  11. Burch, M., Vehlow, C., Konevtsova, N., and Weiskopf, D. (2011b). Evaluating partially drawn links for directed graph edges. In Proceedings of Graph Drawing, pages 226-237.
  12. Burch, M. and Weiskopf, D. (2014). A flip-book of edge-splatted small multiples for visualizing dynamic graphs. In Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction, VINCI, pages 29-38.
  13. Diehl, S. and Görg, C. (2002). Graphs, they are changing. In Proceedings of Graph Drawing, pages 23-30.
  14. Frishman, Y. and Tal, A. (2008). Online Dynamic Graph Drawing. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 14(4):727-740.
  15. Ghani, S., Elmqvist, N., and Yi, J. S. (2012). Perception of animated node-link diagrams for dynamic graphs. Computer Graphics Forum, 31(3):1205-1214.
  16. Ghoniem, M., Fekete, J.-D., and Castagliola, P. (2004). A comparison of the readability of graphs using nodelink and matrix-based representations. In Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization, pages 17-24.
  17. Holten, D., Isenberg, P., van Wijk, J. J., and Fekete, J.-D. (2011). An extended evaluation of the readability of tapered, animated, and textured directed-edge representations in node-link graphs. In PacificVis, pages 195-202.
  18. Purchase, H. C., Hoggan, E. E., and Görg, C. (2006). How important is the ”mental map”? - an empirical investigation of a dynamic graph layout algorithm. In Proceedings of Graph Drawing, pages 184-195.
  19. Rosenholtz, R., Li, Y., Mansfield, J., and Jin, Z. (2005). Feature congestion: a measure of display clutter. In Proceedings of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 761-770.
  20. Rusu, A. I., Fabian, A. J., Jianu, R., and Rusu, A. (2011). Using the Gestalt principle of closure to alleviate the edge crossing problem in graph drawings. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Visualisation, pages 488-493.
  21. Stein, K., Wegener, R., and Schlieder, C. (2010). Pixeloriented visualization of change in social networks. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, pages 233-240.
  22. Stone, M. (2011). In color perception, size matters. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 32(2):8-13.
  23. Tufte, E. R. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Graphics Press, Cheshire, CT.
  24. Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning Information. Graphics Press, Cheshire, CT.
  25. Tversky, B., Morrison, J. B., and Bétrancourt, M. (2002). Animation: can it facilitate? International Journal on Human-Computer Studies, 57(4):247-262.
  26. Ware, C., Purchase, H. C., Colpoys, L., and McGill, M. (2002). Cognitive measurements of graph aesthetics. Information Visualization, 1(2):103-110.
Download


Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Schmauder H., Burch M. and Weiskopf D. (2015). Visualizing DynamicWeighted Digraphs with Partial Links . In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2015) ISBN 978-989-758-088-8, pages 123-130. DOI: 10.5220/0005303801230130


in Bibtex Style

@conference{ivapp15,
author={Hansjörg Schmauder and Michael Burch and Daniel Weiskopf},
title={Visualizing DynamicWeighted Digraphs with Partial Links},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2015)},
year={2015},
pages={123-130},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005303801230130},
isbn={978-989-758-088-8},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2015)
TI - Visualizing DynamicWeighted Digraphs with Partial Links
SN - 978-989-758-088-8
AU - Schmauder H.
AU - Burch M.
AU - Weiskopf D.
PY - 2015
SP - 123
EP - 130
DO - 10.5220/0005303801230130