Nonuniform Timeslicing of Dynamic Graphs Based on Visual Complexity

Uniform timeslicing of dynamic graphs has been used due to its convenience and uniformity across the time dimension. However, uniform timeslicing does not take the data set into account, which can generate cluttered timeslices with edge bursts and empty timeslices with few interactions. The graph mining filed has explored nonuniform timeslicing methods specifically designed to preserve graph features for mining tasks. In this paper, we propose a nonuniform timeslicing approach for dynamic graph visualization. Our goal is to create timeslices of equal visual complexity. To this end, we adapt histogram equalization to create timeslices with a similar number of events, balancing the visual complexity across timeslices and conveying more important details of timeslices with bursting edges. A case study has been conducted, in comparison with uniform timeslicing, to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, IEEE VIS short pape

The Effectiveness of Interactive Visualization Techniques for Time Navigation of Dynamic Graphs on Large Displays

Dynamic networks can be challenging to analyze visually, especially if they span a large time range during which new nodes and edges can appear and disappear. Although it is straightforward to provide interfaces for visualization that represent multiple states of the network (i.e., multiple timeslices) either simultaneously (e.g., through small multiples) or interactively (e.g., through interactive animation), these interfaces might not support tasks in which disjoint timeslices need to be compared. Since these tasks are key for understanding the dynamic aspects of the network, understanding which interactive visualizations best support these tasks is important. We present the results of a series of laboratory experiments comparing two traditional approaches (small multiples and interactive animation), with a more recent approach based on interactive timeslicing. The tasks were performed on a large display through a touch interface. Participants completed 24 trials of three tasks with all techniques. The results show that interactive timeslicing brings benefit when comparing distant points in time, but less benefits when analyzing contiguous intervals of time