Anchored Map: Graph Drawing Technique to Support Network Mining

Abstract

Because network diagrams drawn using the spring embedder are not easy to read, this paper proposes the use of “anchored maps” in which some nodes are fixed as anchors. The readability of network diagrams is discussed, anchored maps are proposed, and a method for drawing anchored maps is explained. The method uses indices to decide the orders of anchors because those orders markedly affect the readability of the network diagrams. Examples showing the effectiveness of the anchored maps are also shown.