Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2-10:
Communities in a highly connected “hairball” graph can
instead be aggregated and summarized visually to better show community
links. Here, link width and color reflect money flow.
Flows
The graph in
Figure 2-10
shows money flow between communities but is
still fundamentally structured to focus on community structure. Distance
separates those communities that are least connected and brings related
communities together. It is not clear which direction money flows in, and
the links in the middle are still relatively dense. When the goal is to clearly
understand flow, other graph techniques must be used.
The decision tree in
Figure 2-4
shows a process, which is an event-oriented
type of flow. One of the most important aspects of flow is that it is
directional—that is, it has a source and a destination. The decision tree
demonstrates one of the most fundamental principles of visualizing flow,
which is that the most intuitive way to show direction is to use a consistent
