CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythongraphvisualizationnetworkx
tryingtolearn
tryingtolearn

Reputation: 2636

networkx force-directed graphs

I've been looking at using a force-directed graph to represent some of my data and am generating the graph using

https://networkx.github.io/documentation/networkx-1.9/reference/generated/networkx.drawing.layout.spring_layout.html

however, I can't seem to figure out exactly what the axes represent. It's supposed to indicate that the closer the nodes are together, the more edges there are in between. Is it right to label the axes as something like "Centrality"?

Looking at the original paper (http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=19A8857540E8C9C26397650BBACD5311?doi=10.1.1.13.8444&rep=rep1&type=pdf) they don't label any of their axes and just say it's a projection in two dimensions.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2155

Answers (1)

Sparky05
Sparky05

Reputation: 4892

The axes itself don't have a meaningful label. The aim is to create a printable version of a network in 2D or 3D. For this positions of the nodes are needed and different algorithms with different objections are available.

Taken from the wikipedia article:

"Their purpose is to position the nodes of a graph in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space so that all the edges are of more or less equal length and there are as few crossing edges as possible, by assigning forces among the set of edges and the set of nodes, based on their relative positions, and then using these forces either to simulate the motion of the edges and nodes or to minimize their energy."

Upvotes: 1

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