SideKnot: Edge Bundling for Uncovering Relation Patterns in Graphs

The node-link diagram is an intuitive way to depict a graph and present relationships between entities. Addressing the visual clutter induced by edge crossing and node-edge overlapping is a challenging task as the size of graph outgrows the visualization space. Many edge bundling methods are proposed to disclose high-level edge patterns. Though previous methods can successfully reveal the skeleton graph structure, the relation patterns at the individual node level can be overlooked. In addition, most edge bundling algorithms are computationally complex, which prevents them from scaling up for extremely large graphs. In this article, we extend SideKnot, an efficient edge bundling method to cluster and knot edges at the node side. Our proposed method is light, runs faster than most existing algorithms, and can reveal the relation patterns at the individual node level. Our results show that SideKnot can disclose a node’s standing in the graph as well as the directional connection patterns to its peers.