TimeArcs: Visualizing Fluctuations in Dynamic Networks

June 6th, 2016

Categories: Visual Analytics, Visual Informatics

TimeArcs visualization for interactions around OPSD protein. (1) and (2) are conflicting evidences of OPSD and K+ interaction in 2003 and 2012 publications.
TimeArcs visualization for interactions around OPSD protein. (1) and (2) are conflicting evidences of OPSD and K+ interaction in 2003 and 2012 publications.

Authors

Dang, T.N., Pendar, N., Forbes, A.G.

About

In this paper we introduce TimeArcs, a novel visualization technique for representing dynamic relationships between entities in a network. Force-directed layouts provide a way to highlight related entities by positioning them near to each other. Entities are brought closer to each other (forming clusters) by forces applied on nodes and connections between nodes. In many application domains, relationships between entities are not temporally stable, which means that cluster structures and cluster memberships also may vary across time. Our approach merges multiple force-directed layouts at different time points into a single comprehensive visualization that provides a big picture overview of the most significant clusters within a user-defined period of time. TimeArcs also supports a range of interactive features, such as allowing users to drill-down in order to see details about a particular cluster. To highlight the benefits of this technique, we demonstrate its application to various datasets, including the IMDB co-star network, a dataset showing conflicting evidences within biomedical literature of protein interactions, and collocated popular phrases obtained from political blogs.

Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces-Graphical user interfaces

Resources

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Citation

Dang, T.N., Pendar, N., Forbes, A.G., TimeArcs: Visualizing Fluctuations in Dynamic Networks, Eurographics Conference on Visualization (EuroVis) 2016, vol 35, no 3, Groningen, The Netherlands, K-L. Ma, G. Santucci, J. J. van Wijk, June 6th, 2016.