Tom, There are two aspects to this...
1. Data analysis, filtering, selection. Note that there are hard computational limits that seem to creep up all over the place whenever you get to exploring these kinds of network relationships --many of them NP, i.e. not practically solvable except through approximation. So PROLOG or another logical query language might help you explore relationships, but won't be helpful for a naive query unless you have a lot of time to kill. :) By the time you get out more than two degrees or so, the data collection and visualization become practically challenging to work with depending on the connectivity of the graph. 2. Actually visualizing the parts that you want to see. It is interesting though that there are a lot of great open source web oriented tools for charting, timelines etc.. (see http://www.simile-widgets.org/exhibit/) but there isn't so much in the way of relatively non-technical "do it yourself" graphing tools out there as far as I know..but I'd love to hear about such a tool if it exists. In increasing order of technical sophistication.. A simple option is to look at Mind Map tools like XMind -- there may be ways to get the data in there but otherwise its going to be a slog. For publication it seems like there would be a tremendous amount of fiddling and simplification to be done anyway so it might very well make sense to do some analysis using above and then more or less manually construct the tree, but there are other ways to do that. Graph Vis: http://www.graphviz.org/ People have done a lot with http://processing.org/ Which is relatively easy to get into for those with less software experience. Zest is a great tool for this in Eclipse and the Agent Modeling Platform uses that extensively to support visualization of graphs for example, but right now this only works out of the box for constructed graphs, not for imported ones. Feel free to refer your colleagues to me if I can help fill in any of the dots here a bit.. cheers, Miles > > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Tom Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Any FRIAM-ers have insights to this interesting query? >> >> -tom johnson >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Dan T Keating <[email protected]> >> Date: Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 6:41 AM >> Subject: Re: [NICAR-L] How do you auto-create a network diagram? >> To: [email protected] >> >> >> >> The data structure described here looks like Semantic Web, an attempt to >> define relationships that will allow creation of automatic relationships and >> links that would not otherwise be apparent. We know in math that if a = b >> and b > c then a > c, but seeing that kind of relationship across data at >> different websites is not easy. Once data is in the Resource Descriptor >> Formt (RDF) format >> Object ==> relationship ==> Fact >> like >> Bill ==> lives on ==> Main St >> and >> Main St ==> is in ==> Neverland >> then tools can start to find patterns in the data. There's a db query >> languary for it SPARQL. >> >> I had read some on Semantic Web a couple years ago and seeing the data in >> this pattern made me wonder if there are more useful tools for digesting it. >> But zipping around the (old fashioned, non-semantic) web has not revealed >> much more than theoretical discussions. Maybe someone has put out a good >> tool for representing data prepared in this format, but I'm not seeing it >> right now. >> >> The most comprensible links I'm seeing right now are from Joshua Tauberer, >> the guy behind govtrack.us. His blogs on the topic are at >> http://razor.occams.info/blog/category/semantic-web/ >> _________________________________ >> Dan Keating >> Graphics Editor/Data, The Washington Post >> (202) 334-5047, [email protected] >> >> >> >> "Skelton, Chad (Vancouver Sun)" <[email protected]> >> >> 07/09/2010 06:29 PM >> >> Please respond to >> Discussion Forum <[email protected]> >> To >> [email protected] >> cc >> Subject >> [NICAR-L] How do you auto-create a network diagram? >> >> >> >> >> Hi everyone, >> >> So a colleague of mine has some data showing the inter-locking relationships >> between various people and companies. The data is set up in a spreadsheet >> kind of like this >> >> Name Relationship To >> John Smith Works For Tim Jones >> Tim Jones Donated Money to ABC Inc. >> ABC Inc. Employs John Smith >> ABC Inc. Hired John Smith >> >> She'll looking for a way to map all these relationships to try to get a >> sense of how these spheres of influence overlap. I know I've seen network >> diagrams like this before -- different points with lines between them, with >> text along the lines showing the relationship between the two points. I even >> remember seeing them in a course I took that dealt with RDFa syntax. I'm >> assuming there must be tools out there that can create simple diagrams from >> data kind of like my colleague's. >> >> Any tips on what tools we could use to make this work? Those that are free >> and/or web based would be best. :) Thanks! >> >> >> Chad Skelton, Reporter >> The Vancouver Sun >> [email protected] >> Phone: 604-605-2892 >> Fax: 604-605-2323 >> >> Check out my blogs: >> vancouversun.com/parenting/ >> vancouversun.com/papertrail/ >> > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
