Interactive Exploration of Large Dynamic Networks

  • Authors:

  • Mathias Pohl;Peter Birke

  • Affiliations:

  • Dept. for Software Engineering, University of Trier, Germany;Dept. for Databases and Information Systems, University of Trier, Germany

  • Venue:
  • VISUAL '08 Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Visual Information Systems: Web-Based Visual Information Search and Management
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

A variety of applications especially in the area of Web 2.0 produce frequently altering hierarchical networks. Thus application operators, members of community websites but also media scientists often are interested in gaining deeper insights in the complex structures of their project and its development over time. In order to enable a suitable visualization of such networks it is not only required to implement an intelligent data management but also a suitable network drawing engine that cares for the user's needs --- especially for visualization of network dynamics. This paper presents the Xldnvisualization tool that enables visual exploration of evolving hierarchical networks. It includes a layout generation algorithm that allows for the preservation of the mental map --- a crucial property when visualizing dynamic networks. By utilization of an efficient data management and a parallel implementation of the graph drawing algorithm Xldnprovides a reasonably fast and interactive network visualization. This way Xldnfacilitates an in-depth evolution analysis of large hierarchic networks.