graphVizdb: A Scalable Platform for Interactive Large Graph Visualization

TL;DR

graphVizdb is a scalable, web-based platform enabling interactive exploration of large graphs through offline preprocessing, multi-level abstraction, and efficient spatial queries, facilitating low-latency navigation and search.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining offline graph layout, multi-level abstraction, and spatial indexing to enable efficient large graph visualization and interaction.

Findings

Supports interactive navigation and multi-level exploration.

Achieves low latency with spatial query techniques.

Handles very large graphs efficiently.

Abstract

We present a novel platform for the interactive visualization of very large graphs. The platform enables the user to interact with the visualized graph in a way that is very similar to the exploration of maps at multiple levels. Our approach involves an offline preprocessing phase that builds the layout of the graph by assigning coordinates to its nodes with respect to a Euclidean plane. The respective points are indexed with a spatial data structure, i.e., an R-tree, and stored in a database. Multiple abstraction layers of the graph based on various criteria are also created offline, and they are indexed similarly so that the user can explore the dataset at different levels of granularity, depending on her particular needs. Then, our system translates user operations into simple and very efficient spatial operations (i.e., window queries) in the backend. This technique allows for a fine-grained access to very large graphs with extremely low latency and memory requirements and without compromising the functionality of the tool. Our web-based prototype supports three main operations: (1) interactive navigation, (2) multi-level exploration, and (3) keyword search on the graph metadata.