Visualization advice for a neo4j rookie: fixed node positions and varied edge thickness

[john_harris]

Hello new neo4j friends. First time poster here!

I have a graph set up in neo4j already. It has 40 nodes and around 1000 edges, where many pairs of nodes are joined by multiple edges. I've been looking for a way to visualize this graph in a way that meets the following two specifications:

1. I would like to choose (and fix) the position of each node
2. I would like to have the multiple edges between each pair of nodes replaced with a single edge whose thickness corresponds to how many edges there actually are between those nodes.

It is fine (actually preferred) if this is a standalone visualization. That is, it doesn't need to live on a web page or anything.

What visualization tools do you think would work nicely (and as easily as possible for my simple mind) for this application? I've played with neovis.js, but I wasn't able to see how to control the layout of the nodes in order to put them in specific places. I tried downloading and running Gephi, but there seem to be issues with getting it to launch on my laptop.

I would appreciate any advice you might have to offer. Thanks very much!

[llpree]

Welcome John,

Sorry no one else bothered you before 🙂 but I'll repair that now.

Visualization is a frustrating topic given the state of the tools BUT also a very ripe area of opportunity for growth. Because getting a better visual is super import in the graph-adoption journey, it's super important. The most important questions I think one starts with is: is your graph huge and what's the visualization story. The first question is really embedded in the second, but it matters if your story is about say, the Neo "movie graph" because there is really small graph where what's interesting is specifics about say, Kevin Bacon. But if it's a billion node graph about a disease or a social network, then the picture will be from a 60,000 foot level where patterns and communities will come into play.

Each tool I've used, such as the js library you ref, has strengths and weaknesses. I'd pay attention to how visualization tools will need to move away from their current java focus to probably a javascript focus given I do not think Larry E will spend any of his moneys on front-end work so the GDI needs of a graph will start to move towards an alternative plan and I think that will end up being javascript.

So, tools like Gephi, very much a java tool, will have work to do. It'll be interesting to see how Neo migrates as well, esp wrt Bloom, which is a great option but be careful about the rather large leap from "try" to "buy". I'm impressed with the options found in GraphXR. One word of caution with Gephi: great tool but looks like the integration stopped on Gephi version 0.8. Not well documented, but that's unfortunate. Getting from Neo--CSV--Gephi is a bit tricky now, but Gephi has a nice presentation offering once you get everything aligned.

Have fun and HTH.

Quick update re "Gephi". Seems there's been a rather recent update and a new plugin for Gephi. Find that here.