Social Network Visualizer https://socnetv.org/ SocNetV v3.1 released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v31-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v31-released Mon, 12 Jun 2023 19:57:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project announces a new version of our favorite SNA application. SocNetV v3.1 is the first Qt6-only release and brings many improvements and bugfixes.

SocNetV v3.1 has faster large file loading, as well as quicker responsiveness with large nets (>20000 edges), while having less memory footprint. Among the bug fixed: edge filtering now works as intented.

The new version is now available for Windows, macOS and Linux. Go to the SocNetV Downloads page and get it.

]]>
SocNetV v3.0 released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v30-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v30-released Fri, 30 Jul 2021 06:49:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project has released a brand-new version of our favorite SNA application. SocNetV v3.0 brings improved speed and responsiveness, bugfixes and new command line parameters.

Using the new version you will get faster computations because Graph is now running on a separate thread. Also, this is the first SocNetV version to support hardware accelerated (OpenGL) rendering of the networks on the canvas. This feature is enabled by default, but it can be disabled in Settings.

The Web Crawler has been improved to test for OpenSSL support in the OS and give the user hints what to do if no OpenSSL is present. Also, the delay between requests has been fixed, and it works.

Among various bug fixes: fixed a serious bug in weighted network centrality computations (see #123).

Note: To run SocNetV 3.0 AppImage in Fedora 34 which uses Wayland by default, use:

env GDK_BACKEND=x11 ./SocNetV-3.0-dev-x86_64.AppImage

But no worries, you can get a proper Fedora/openSUSE package (rpm) from our OBS repos!

The new version is now available for Windows, macOS and Linux. Go to the SocNetV Downloads page and get it.

]]>
SocNetV v2.9 released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v29-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v29-released Tue, 15 Jun 2021 07:05:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project has released a new version of our favorite social network analysis and visualization software application. SocNetV 2.9 fixes the macOS Big Sur issue, and brings a few bugfixes and improvements. It is now available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Go to the SocNetV Downloads page and get it!

]]>
SocNetV v2.8 released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v28-released-2 https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v28-released-2 Sun, 03 Jan 2021 16:21:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project has released a brand new version of our favorite social network analysis and visualization software application. SocNetV version 2.8 brings bugfixes and improvements and it is now available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Go to the SocNetV Downloads page and get it!

]]>
SocNetV v2.5 released with lots of new features and new looks! https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v25-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v25-released Fri, 08 Mar 2019 11:22:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project has released a brand new version of our favorite social network analysis and visualization software application. SocNetV version 2.5, codenamed "maniac" brings new features and improvements and it is now available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Go to the SocNetV Downloads page and get it!

Here is a brief list of all new features and bugfixes.

Prominence score distribution

SocNetV automatically computes the prominence scores distribution and displays it in a mini chart in the right sidebar of the app window. The chart can be line, area or bars. You can select which chart type you want from app Settings.

The same chart, albeit quite larger, is exported in your socnetv-data folder and displayed inside every HTML prominence report.

Search for and select multiple nodes by numbers, labels, scores

You can now search for multiple nodes by their number, label or prominence  score. Matched nodes are highlighted.

Lattice network generator

SocNetV can now create regular lattices of arbitrary dimensions.   You can define the lattice dimension d, and the length/size l of each dimension.  Also, you can define custom neighborhood size n, which is the distance within which the neighbors on the lattice will be connected.

Edge dichotomization

In weighted networks with valued edges, the user can now ask SocNetV to dichotomize the edges according to some threshold. All edges with weight above that threshold will become binary. The result is a non-valued graph, which is displayed in a new relation.

Custom icons in nodes

SocNetV now allows any image (i.e. PNG, JPEG, SVG) as custom node icon. You can select the desired image from Settings -> Nodes. Any image file from your filesystem can be used as custom node icon in your network.

Also, except the legacy node shapes (box, circle, diamond, etc), SocNetV offers many more built-in icons (person, computer, bug etc).

Export network to any image format

You can now export the network to any of the image formats supported by Qt, i.e. PNG, JPG, BMP, TIFF etc.

Much improved PDF exporting

You can now select orientation as well as quality and DPI when exporting the network to PDF file.

Uniform UI theme

High quality UI theme, inspired from Material Design, for uniform look'n'feel of SocNetV across all OSes.

New Control Panel toolbox menu: Network Auto Create

You can now automatically create a network with one click in the new toolbox menu. Random nets, famous data-sets and web crawler are supported.

Improved Web Crawler

The built-in web crawler runs faster and allows you to exclude/include social network links, parent and child links.

Support for floating point edge weights

SocNetV now understands floating point and (double) edge weights in Adjacency, GraphML, Pajek, edgelists, GML, etc. This means that edge weights in network files can be valid numerical characters along with the plus/minus sign, the characters g and e used in scientific notation, and the decimal point. This fixes a bug with non-integer edge weights  while importing Adjacency files...

Also this version brings speed optimization and improved memory management.

]]>
SocNetV 2.4 released! https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-24-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-24-released Wed, 28 Feb 2018 15:32:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project released today a brand new version of our favorite social network analysis and visualization software application. SocNetV version 2.4, released on Feb 28, is a major upgrade bringing lots of new features.  The new version is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from the Downloads page.

Here's a brief discussion of the new features and changes of SocNetV version 2.4:

Kamada-Kawai layout model

In this model, the network is considered to be a dynamic system where every two actors are 'particles' mutually connected by a 'spring'. Each spring has a desirable length, which corresponds to their graph theoretic distance. In this way, the optimal layout of the graph is the state with the minimum imbalance. The degree of imbalance is formulated as the total spring energy: the square summation of the differences between desirable distances and real ones for all pairs of particles Initially, the particles/actors are placed on the vertices of a regular n-polygon

Node colors by prominence score visualization layout

Up to now, SocNetV could visualize actor prominence (centrality or prestige score) in radial, level and node size layouts. SocNetV v2.4 supports a node coloration layout, where the color of each node depicts its score in a user-selected Prominence index. Simply put, the color shows how important the actor is inside the network in terms of Centrality or Prestige.

To do this, SocNetV computes the prominence index scores of all actors and then changes the color of every node using the HSV color model. To be precise, different values of hue (from 0, which is absolute red to 240, which is absolute blue), are used according to the prominence score of each node. This way, the least important actors (the periphery) are colored blue while the most important ones (the core) are colored red. The prominence scores between these two corner cases follow the familiar color wheel. I.e. an actor colored yellow means it is more important than those colored blue, cyan or green but less important than the ones colored red. See color wheel example: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/RGB_color_circle.png

Reciprocated edges in directed networks appear in a single line

Up to now, SocNetV displayed reciprocated directed edges between two actors A and B in two separate lines, one for the A -> B tie and another for the A <- B tie. That was problematic in terms of memory consumption (double edge graphic items) on very large directed nets. It also made the network visualization less attractive as the user was seeing double lines between nodes. From now on, SocNetV displays the reciprocated ties between actors in a single line with two arrows. On clicking a reciprocated edge, the Statistics panel displays info that this is a reciprocated edge along with the weights of both arcs.

If you right-click a reciprocated edge and select "Remove edge" or "Change Edge Weight" the application asks which of the two directed edges you want to remove/change, for instance "A --> B" or "B --> A".

 

Improved memory consumption

Previous versions of SocNetV used to consume a lot of RAM when loading very large networks (i.e. more than 2,000 edges). This version has been optimized to minimize memory consumption in those cases.

New options and features in web crawler.

Web crawler dialog and algorithm has been enhanced with nice new options and features. The user may now specify certain link patterns to include or avoid during parsing a web page. The crawler can also stop creating self-links, and wait for a random amount of msecs (0-1000) between connections.

Improved Statistics Panel

The LCDs in the statistics panel have been replaced by simpler strings which display the same statistics, plus with greater efficiency. For instance, when clicking on a reciprocated edge in a directed network, the Statistics panel displays the weights of both edge directions.

Performance options in Settings 

New Performance options have been added in app Settings dialog (Canvas tab). The user may now select which features of the Qt GraphicsView will be enabled. Available options include pretty much all features of Qt GraphicsView, such as antialiasing, antialiasing auto-adjustment, smooth pixmap transformation, painter state saving, background caching, canvas update mode, canvas indexing method and edge highlighting. Of all these options, the latter (edge highlighting) has the most immediate effect on performance. Disabling edge highlighting in networks with thousands of edges will give a performance boost and make the interaction with the network quicker. Also, if you need max performance, we recommend disabling all checkboxes.

Improved UCINET format support (fullmatrix two-mode and edgelist)

SocNetV can now read two-mode UCINET files formatted in fullmatrix format. That is files that declare both NR and NC variables. For instance, a file that declares a two-mode sociomatrix of NR actors and NC organizations. Work will be done in future versions to let the user select if she wants one-mode or two-mode data visualization.

At the moment, the two-mode network is visualized as follows:

First, for every row in the fullmatrix, a node i is created numbered 1:NR

Then for each column another node j is created, numbered NR:NC.

Thus, the two mode network consists of a total of NR+NC nodes.

For each non-zero (i,j) element of the fullmatrix, an edge from actor i to organization j is created. Also, the application can now import edgelist1 formatted UCINET files which were exported from R's sna package.

Improved stability
  Many bugs* have been fixed and random crashes were resolved. See fixed bugs below for more.

* Bugs Fixed and closed:
  #40: Wrong BC scores when the network is weighted
  #54: Using 1 as weight even after saying yes to weight dialogs in some cases
  #38: Disabling isolate nodes has no effect in distance matrix report
  #41: Wrong variance value in clustering coefficient (in repeated computations)
  #33: Missing Radial/Level Layout by Eigenvector Centrality
  #48: Eccentricity scores should be infinite for those nodes which are either isolated or
       cannot reach some other node. Nodes which can reach all other nodes should have
       finite eccentricity.
  #34: Menu options to apply Node Size layout by Prominence index
  #56: Edges do not offset from source/target node when node changes size
  #46: (regression) crashes on distance matrix after disabling isolates
  #42: Proper progress dialogs
  #44: Crash on second search after node removal
  #24: No Performance options in Settings
  #51: Web crawler: Fix random crashes
  #60: Wrong filename extension when saving an automatically generated famous data set
  #61: The "Save As" method does not always save networks in graphml format
  #62: Some "edgelist1" formatted UCINET files are not recognizable
  #63: Two-mode UCINET files are not supported
  #65: Crash when doing Hierarchical Cluster Analysis with ill-defined input matrix
  #36: Crashes on HCA with isolated nodes
  #49: Connectedness method sometimes returns default result
  #47: Extra columns displayed in Adjacency Matrix report when the user has disabled nodes.

]]>
SocNetV v2.3 released! https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v23-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v23-released Wed, 05 Jul 2017 10:05:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project is happy to announce that a brand new version of our favorite social network analysis and visualization software application has been released. SocNetV version 2.3, released on Jul 5, has the eloquent codename "fixer" and it is now available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux  from the Downloads page.

What the new version brings to the users? As usual with our odd numbered minor versions, this is a bugfix release. While v2.2 brought a lot of new and important features, v2.3 focuses on stability and fixing bugs here and there. Nevertheless, there are a couple of new features as well, which you can find interesting for your network analysis endeavours: 

  • Dyad and  Actor/Ego reciprocity: Reciprocity, denoted by 'r', is a network cohesion index. It measures the likelihood of vertices in a directed network to be mutually linked. SocNetV v2.3 supports two different methods to index the degree of reciprocity in a social network:
    - The arc reciprocity, which is the fraction of reciprocated ties over all actual ties in the network.
    - The dyad reciprocity which is the fraction of actor pairs that have reciprocated ties over all pairs of actors that have any connection.
    In a directed network, the arc reciprocity measures the proportion of directed edges that are bidirectional. If the reciprocity is 1, then the adjacency matrix is structurally symmetric.
    Likewise, in a directed network, the dyad reciprocity measures the proportion of connected actor dyads that have bidirectional ties between them.
    In an undirected graph, all edges are reciprocal. Thus the reciprocity of the graph is always 1.
    Reciprocity can be computed on undirected, directed, and weighted graphs, from the toolbox/menu: Analyze > Cohesion > Reciprocity. The report is opened and displayed as usual in HTML format in your preferred web browser.
  • Zero-weighted edge support: In ordinary SNA, zero-weighted edges are thought to be meaningless, but a user pointed to us that SocNetV was accepting and drawing zero-valued edges when opening edge list formatted files. Apparently this was due to a bug. In fact, the whole concept of an edge in SNA (and SocNetV) is that two actors i and j are "connected" (and an edge is drawn between them) only if there is a non-zero value at sociomatrix cell A(i,j). Thus, if A(i,j)=0 then the actors are considered not directly connected and no edge should be drawn between them. This assumption has implications in computations as well: all centrality and matrix manipulation algorithms of network analysis are implicitly computing their results using only non-zero (and some of them only positive) weighted edges between actors. Nevertheless, we understand that some users may need this functionality only for visualization reasons. Thus, we implemented this functionality in v2.3. Please note that this functionality will work (for the time being) only for weighted edge lists and only for simple visualizations.
  • Zero-weighted edge color selection: With regards to the above new feature, the Settings dialog allows the user to select default edge color for zero-valued edges. Here is a screenshot.

     

     

]]>
SocNetV v2.2 released with cluster analysis, eigenvector centrality and many more features! https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v22-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v22-released Sat, 21 Jan 2017 01:10:00 +0000 We are pleased to announce that a new version of your favorite social network analysis and visualization software application has been released. SocNetV version 2.2,  codenamed "beyond", brings many new features and it is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Visit the Downloads page to get it!

Here is a brief list of all new features and bugfixes.

Hierarchical Clustering Analysis (HCA)

SocNetV can now perform hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis on a social network.  Supported methods: Single-linkage (minimum), Complete-linkage (maximum) and Average-linkg (UPGMA).

The Structural Equivalence matrix can be computed from the adjacency or the geodesic distances matrix using a user-selected distance metric such as Euclidean distance, Manhattan distance Jaccard distance etc.

The result of the HCA is the list of clusters per level and  a dendrogram of the clusters hierarchy in SVG format.

An example screenshot of HCA dendrogram:

Eigenvector Centrality

Version 2.2. adds support for yet another centrality metric: Eigenvector centrality. The Eigenvector centrality of each node in a social network  is defined as the ith element of the leading eigenvector of the adjacency matrix. The leading eigenvector is the eigenvector corresponding to the largest positive eigenvalue.

This metric can also be used for embedding radial or level layout in the network.

Pearson product moment correlation coefficients

SocNetV can now correlate actor profiles (ties or distances to other actors) and compute a correlation matrix of pair-wise Pearson coefficients. The computation is done on the given matrix (adjacency or distances) and can be applied on rows (outbound ties), columns (inbound ties) or both.

Actor Similarity

SocNetV can compare the pair-wise tie/distance profiles of actors in order to produce a similarity matrix.

You can select one of the supported measures (Simple Matching, Jaccard, Hamming, Cosine similarity or Euclidean distance).

The algorithm can compare rows (outbound links), columns or both of the input matrix.

Tie profile dissimilarities

SocNetV computes the pair-wise tie profile dissimilarities of the actors, using any of the supported "distance" metrics: Euclidean, Manhattan, Hamming, Jaccard, Chebyshev.

The algorithm uses the adjacency matrix as input. It can compare rows (outbound links), columns (inbound links) or both.

Maximal clique census

SocNetV now uses the Bron–Kerbosch algorithm to find all maximal cliques in an undirected or directed graph.

It produces a census of all MAXIMAL cliques in the network and reports some useful statistics about these.

The clique census report includes disaggregation by vertex and co-membership information. It even prints the cluster analysis dendrogram actor co-membership matrix.

Symmetrize edges by examining Strong Ties

Given a network, the user can create a new relation with only strong ties (when both a->b and b->a exist).

You can opt to create strong ties either from all relations or from current relation only.

Cocitation matrix

SocNetV computes and displays the cocitation matrix of the active social network.

The Cocitation matrix, C=A*A^T, is a NxN matrix where each element (i,j) is the number of actors that have outbound ties/links to both actors i and j.

Cocitation network

When a network is loaded, SocNetV can create a new symmetric relation by connecting actors that are cocitated by others.

In the new relation, an edge will exist between actor i and actor j only if C(i,j) > 0,  where C the Cocitation Matrix. Thus the actor pairs cited by more common neighbors will appear with a stronger tie between them than pairs those cited by fewer common neighbors.

Filter (temporarily disable) unilateral (non-reciprocal) edges.

This feature enables you to temporarily symmetrize a directed network by focusing only on the strong, reciprocal ties. Essentially, the program will disable temporarily all unilateral (non-reciprocal) edges.


Multi-relational data read and write in GraphML

SocNetV now supports reading and writing .graphml files with multiple relations. At the moment there is no option as to whether to write one or all relations of the current network to a file. If your network has multiple relations, they will all be saved in the selected GraphML file.

GML format support

The application can load and parse GML formatted network data. At the moment only graph, directed, node, edge, id and labels are supported.

Support for Multirelational directed networks in Pajek files

SocNetV can read Pajek files with multiple relations in *Arcs

Support for EdgeLists with labels

SocNetV can now parse simple and valued EdgeList files where the nodes are referenced by their labels.

HTML reports

SocNetV reports are now saved by default in HTML format. This allows us to have a vastly improved formatting in all reports, as you can see from the screenshots.

Also in Centrality and Prestige reports,  you can now sort the results by any column on-the-fly. Just click on the up-down arrow on the header of your preferred column to sort the table by the column contents (ascending or descending).

Note: By default, HTML reports are opened in the system web browser.

Adjacency matrix plot

SocNetV can now plot the adjacency matrix to a file using unicode chars:

Create basic subgraphs with one click

SocNetV can now create clique, star, cycle, and line subgraphs from a group of selected vertices. Just select a group of vertices and select a subgraph from "Selection Subgraph" in the Control Panel or right click on a node and select it in the popup menu (see screenshot below).


 
Improved performance

SocNetV can multiply matrices faster, by using a recursive Exponentiation by squaring or Fast Modulo multiplication algorithm.

Also, all TextEditor reporting windows will be closed on app exit/init
 
GUI: Revamped Control Panel and more app icons in the toolbar

The left toolbox (Control Panel) interface was changed to provide a more organized one-click functionality.

The add/remove buttons for nodes and edges have been removed from the Control Panel. They now appear as toolbar icons, along with icons for node finding and properties, edge filtering  and application Settings.

The Analyze options in the Control Panel were re-organized in Matrix, Cohesion, Prominence,  Communities and Equivalence select popups.
In the Matrix popup list, the user can select which Matrix to compute and view, ie. Adjacency, Cocitation, Laplacian, etc.

The Cohesion popup list includes all basic graph-theory metrics: distances, walks, average distance, clustering coefficient etc.

The Equivalence popup lists all available Structural Equivalence algorithms in SocNetV: HCA, Similarities, Pearson Coefficients, and Tie Profile Dissimilarities.


Other improvements/changes
Select Relation box is now editable. You can change the name of the current relation on the fly.
Also, in case of errors during file importing, the applicaiton informs the user about the line in the file where the errors occurs.
 
Changes in Datasets
  - New dataset: Petersen Graph
  - Transformed Krackhardt: High-tech managers and Zachary Karate club into multirelational datasets

Bugs resolved
  #1645504 Wrong distances in valued/weighted social networks
  #1463087 zero appeal parameter not working in scale free nets
  #1629997 Edges with floating point weights are not saved
  #1632857 creating nodes randomly may position some of them out of canvas
  #1634634 Wrong interpretation of edgedefault graph attribute value
  #1636525 Edge labels are not saved in GraphML when the network is undirected
  #1637890 Cannot read edgelist files where edges are declared by labels (include non-digit characters)
  #1632874 Rubber band selection does not always work
  #1633194 Edge arrows option does not exist in Settings
  #1633225 Deselect All does not deselect last clicked node
  #1622870 Fix large matrix formatting in txt exports
  #1637326 Loading multirelational pajek files leaves the app in "not saved" mode
  #1 Wrong Group Degree Centralization computation (https://github.com/socnetv/app/issues/1)
  #2 Use GitHub as code hosting/repository service (https://github.com/socnetv/app/issues/2)

Important Notices:
Project's new domain: http://socnetv.org
Project's code and files are now hosted in Github. :)

Download and as always: have fun with your social network analysis projects!

]]>
SocNetV v2.1 has been released! https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v21-has-been-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v21-has-been-released Wed, 28 Sep 2016 22:36:00 +0000 Today is a wonderful day, because we are happy to announce that a brand new version of our favorite social network analysis and visualization software application has been released. SocNetV version 2.1, released on Sep 28, has the quite eloquent codename "fixer" and it is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux  from the Downloads page.

What the new version brings to the users? Not so many new features as v2.0 did, but it incorporates lots of bug fixes. More specifically:

  • Faster & accurate network analysis computation
    - The algorithms for social network analysis have been improved, and most of them are computed all together when one metric is calculated. The metric results are saved and re-used through the session. Metrics are recomputed only when new nodes or new edges  are added or when edge weights are changed.
    - Also network analysis metrics, such as PageRank Prestige (PRP) and Average Graph Distance  (AGD) have been fixed to produce correct results.
  • New d-regular random network generator
    - The algorithm of the d-regular network generator has been rewritten, and now produces  both directed and undirected d-regular random networks without errors.
  • Improved UCINET format support
    - Fullmatrix format is now supported again. SocNetV already supports edgelist format.
  • Better network visualization
    - Errors in node and edge stacking on the canvas, as well as huge line widths of edges  with large weights have been corrected.
  • Bugs Fixed: 
    #1624561 Network files with both arcs and edges are loaded as solely undirected nets
    #1622889 d-regular generator does not produce random nets
    #1623812 After a new network file loaded, the app behaves as the network has changed
    #1624583 UCINET dl file crashes the app
    #1624750 Random new nodes can be drawn out of canvas
    #1625831 Removing an edge in undirected Graphs does not update the node outDegree
    #1627390 Wrong PageRank Prestige results In undirected nets
    #1627721 Wrong average graph distance metric in disconnected networks
    #1628382 Edges with very large weights are drawn with huge line widths
    #1627213 Crashes when double clicking on a target node, if the source node is deleted
    #1628170 edge labeling with html special chars breaks graphml files
    #1622891 Highlighted edges should have larger z-index
    #1624352 Change edge color dialog does not show the current edge color
    #1624360 Default edge color and node shape wrong in Edit menu dialogs
    #1628395 Wrong z-value of nodes and edges - nodes and edges are cluttered.

Download and as always: have fun with your social network analysis projects!

]]>
SocNetV 2.0 released packed with new features and built for speed! https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-20-released-packed-with-new-features-and-built-for-speed https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-20-released-packed-with-new-features-and-built-for-speed Mon, 12 Sep 2016 20:14:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project has released a brand new version of the Social Network Analysis application which brings major code overhaul, new GUI layout, significant improvements and lots of bugfixes.

SocNetV v2.0 brings stability, great performance boost and nice new features for easier social network analysis such as separate modes for graphs and digraphs, permanent settings/preferences functionality, edge labeling, recent files, keyboard shortcuts, etc. Also there are improvements in Force-Directed layouts, i.e. Fructherman-Reingold. See below a walk-through of the new features.

Major code overhaul for memory and performance optimization.

SocNetV 2.0 occupies less memory and executes most social network analysis and visualization operations much faster than before. For instance, random network creation is faster and more reliable as many bugs have been fixed. Also, network/graph data loading from various formats has also been optimized for speed and efficiency.

New GUI layout

The new SocNetV Graphical User Interface is, we hope, much easier and intuitive. There are no more tabs on the left side of the application window. Instead, the new GUI offers two side panels along the main canvas. The left panel (called Control Panel) offers graph editing buttons and network analysis/visualization options to be selected with one click. The right panel (called Statistics Panel) shows basic information and statistics about the whole social network and the last clicked node, such as network type (undirected or not), network density, node in-Degree and out-Degree and node Clustering Coefficient.

Note: If you need more canvas space for your social network visualization, you can show/hide the panels from the Settings & Preferences dialog (see below).

You can create new nodes with the usual ways (double-click on empty space or click on the button Add Node) and draw edges between them. To draw a new edge between two nodes, double-click on the first and then double-click on the second. Or just right-click on the first node and select Add Edge (and enter target node number).

Node Numbers inside

As you see in the screenshots, the default behavior for nodes is now to draw their numbers inside the node shape.

We think this helps minimize clutter but you can always have node numbers out of nodes. Go to menu Options -> Nodes and disable "Node Numbers Inside Nodes".

To permanently change this settings, use the option in the Settings & Preferences dialog (new feature - see below).

Zoom and Rotation Sliders

Furthermore, along the canvas there are two new sliders. The bottom horizontal slider controls canvas rotation. Drag the slider left-right or use the buttons on the two corners to rotate the whole network counterclockwise or clockwise.

The vertical slider on the right side of the canvas controls zoom. Drag the slider up-down or use the buttons on the two corners to zoom in or out. There is also a nice "reset zoom and rotation" button on the bottom right corner.

Keyboard shortcuts

To facilitate analysis work, most functions and operations have been given a nice shortcut. If you prefer using the keyboard to create and analyze your social networks, the new version brings you everything to your fingertips. For instance, press CTRL+. to add a new node and CTRL+/ to add a new edge. Here is a brief cheatsheet with shortcuts:

  • Add new node: Ctrl+.
  • Add new edge: Ctrl+/
  • View network file: F5
  • View adjacency: F6
  • Recreate datasets: F7
  • Create random network: Ctrl+R+key (where key=E for Erdos, S for Scale-Free, W for Small-World, etc)
  • Web crawl a site: Shift+C
  • New relation: Ctrl+Alt+N
  • Next relation: Alt+right arrow
  • Previous relation: Alt+left arrow
  • Zoom In: Ctrl+Shift++
  • Zoom Out: Ctrl+Shift+-
  • Rotate counterclockwise: Ctrl+left arrow
  • Rotate clockwise: Ctrl+right arrow
  • Symmetrize Edges: Cltr+E+S
  • Undirected Edges/Mode: Ctrl+E+U

Tooltips and help

What is a nice GUI if it does not help even the novice user to start using the application? With that in mind, tooltips and “What's This” help messages have been added to most GUI elements.  Just hover on any button or control widget and a helpful tooltip will appear to explain what it does. You can also click on the “?” button on the toolbar and then click on any menu entry, button, checkbox or widget to see a relevant explanation.

 

New feature: Settings & Preferences dialog and permanent settings functionality

In the past, SocNetV did not offer any way to permanently save some of your preferences, i.e. node and edge colors. Version 2.0 brings that functionality in the form of a powerful and user-friendly Settings dialog. You can find it under Options menu in Windows/Linux and Application menu in Mac). It can also be invoked using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+comma.

The dialog is composed of three tabs: General, Nodes, and Edges.  In the General tab, users can change and permanently save their options such as debugging messages printing, progress bars appearance, canvas color and background etc. From this tab, you can also hide the two panels, so you can use the whole application window as canvas for social network analysis and visualization.

The Nodes tab has settings about the nodes (default color, size, shape), node numbers and node labels (toggling, color, font size and distance from the node).

Similarly, the Edges tab offers permanent settings about the edges, their color, weight displaying/size and labels (yes, this is a new feature: edge labels, see more below).

Any change to the options in the Settings dialog is applied at once. When the user presses the OK button, all settings are saved in a settings.conf file in the home directory and they will be used by default in all future sessions.

Note that some of these settings are also available as single options in the Edit and Options menus. But any change to these options from the menus will be temporary and will be lost once you close the application.


New feature: Labels on edges.

As mentioned above, edges can now have labels arbitrary chosen by the user, which are displayed along with their weights. Just right-click on an edge, select "Change edge label" and enter a new edge label. The edge label visibility can be toggled temporarily from the Options -> Edges menu or permanently from the Settings dialog.

Here is a network with edge labels:

Note: At the moment, edge labels are saved only in GraphML formatted files.


New feature: Directed Edges on different lines

The new version brings a long requested functionality: the ability to depict directed edges between two vertices with different lines. In past versions, edges (directed and undirected) between two nodes were displayed as a single line. Only small arrows on the two corners of the line were indicating if that edge was inbound, outbound or both (reciprocal or undirected). That did not help the user to see at once if the two nodes were connected by one undirected edge, one directed edge or two reciprocal directed edges between them.

This problem is solved in the new SocNetV v2.0. All directed edges are displayed as separate lines on the canvas. Thus, if you add a tie from node A to node B and another tie from node B to node A, you will see two different directed lines: one from node A to B and another from node B to node A. The same is true if you load a directed social network.

New feature: “Directed” and “Undirected” mode

By default, SocNetV 2.0 uses a “directed mode” when creating new edges between nodes. Namely, any new edge you create by point-and-click (or using Ctrl+/) is considered to be a directed one.

But there is also an “undirected mode”, when you want to create or edit undirected social networks, or convert a directed network to undirected one. To enter this mode, enable the menu option Edit -> Edges -> Undirected edges. Note: You can see the actual edge mode at the top of the Statistics Panel.

This option transforms all existing directed edges to undirected and enables the “undirected mode”. Any edge you add between nodes will be undirected.

The same logic applies on loading social networks from a file. If the file explicitly declares undirected Edges or undirected Graph, the network is visualized with undirected  edges, single lines with no arrows. 

Note: At the moment this directed/undirected feature is supported mainly for GraphML and Pajek files.


New feature: Delete multiple nodes at once.

Select any number of nodes (left-click on the canvas and drag to select all nodes in the  rectangle rubber band). Then right-click on one of the selected nodes and select Remove nodes.

New feature: Node edges highlight.

When you hover on a node, the program highlight (in red) all edges of that node.

New feature: Edge highlight on hover.

Also, when you hover on an edge, that edge is highlighted (red color and increased width) to help you see at once the two nodes it connects.

New feature: Recent files

Version 2.0 brings a nice Recent Files functionality, as submenu under the Network menu. Every time the user loads or saves a file, a relevant entry is added under Network → Recent Files. The application keeps a list of the last five saved or opened files along with their paths, so that the user can re-open them with one-click. Of course, Recent Files are preserved between sessions, so you can easily re-open your last saved social network analysis work.

Updated Manual with new looks!

The SocNetV Manual has been updated and it is now opened directly from the website instead of being local to your computer.
If you prefer to have the manual offline, its source files can be found in the archive tarball or zip file. To create the complete HTML manual, use the doxygen command.

Windows 10 compatibility and user-friendly Installer!

SocNetV v2.0 Windows executable is compiled with the latest Qt version which supports Windows 10. Also the new version is now distributed with a nice and easy to use installer. Just download the installer, double-click on it to execute it and then press Continue a couple of times. The application will be properly installed and a shortcut will be added to your Start menu.

]]>
Social Network Analysis - using Social Network Visualizer https://socnetv.org/news/?post=social-network-analysis-using-social-network-visualizer https://socnetv.org/news/?post=social-network-analysis-using-social-network-visualizer Fri, 13 May 2016 12:00:00 +0000 This video, uploaded to YouTube by Micheal Axelsen, takes on the dreaded social network analysis by using SocNetV.

]]>
SocNetV v1.9 released - bug fixes and speed increase https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v19-released-bug-fixes-and-speed-increase https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v19-released-bug-fixes-and-speed-increase Tue, 23 Jun 2015 16:17:00 +0000 The Social Network Visualizer project has just released version 1.9, which fixes many important bugs and brings a faster matrix inverse routine.  Source code, Windows zipped executables, Mac OS image and binary packages for major Linux distributions are as always available from the Downloads page.

The matrix inverse algorithm is now using LU decomposition which greatly improves the computation speed. This improvement also affects Information Centrality algorithm which runs now in 1/10 of the time needed in earlier SocNetV versions.

Also, version 1.9 brings a revamped PageRank Prestige algorithm. Up to 1.8 the PageRank algorithm was using the original Page&Brin formula which lead to different results. From this version, SocNetV uses the correct formula and computes comparable results.  Also, the initial PR score  of each node is now 1/N.


  Bugs closed:
  #1463069 wrong average distance when there are isolates
  #1365037 certain sparse matrices crash socnetv on invertMatrix method
  #1365582 centralityInformation() is slow when network N>100
  #1463095 edge filter works but the user cannot undo
  #1464422 wrong pagerank results
  #1464430 socnetv refuses to read pajek files not starting with *Network
  #1465774 edges do not always follow relations
  #1463082 edge color change is not taking place
  #1464418 socnetv crashes on pagerank computation on isolated nodes

 

]]>
SocNetV v1.8 released with scale-free network generator https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v18-released-with-scale-free-network-generator https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v18-released-with-scale-free-network-generator Fri, 05 Jun 2015 16:42:00 +0000 A new version of SocNetV has just been released with a couple of nice new features.

First of all, there is an new clique computation routine with a revamped report. The new "clique census" report includes aggregate counts of cliques (up to clique number 4), along with disaggregation by vertex and co-membership information.

Another new feature is the generation of scale-free random networks/graphs. SocNetV generates random scale-free networks of n nodes according to the Barabási–Albert (BA) model which uses a preferential attachment mechanism.

The algorithm starts with m0 connected nodes (default: 1). In each step, it adds a single new node with m edges to existing (old) nodes. The probability that the new node will connect to an existing node i is:

pi=(α+dpi)∑jdj

where:

α the initial 'attractiveness' of each node,
di the degree of node i
jdj the sum of degrees of all pre-existing nodes j

if α=0 and p=1 then the preferential attachment is linear (BA model).

 

Version 1.8 brings also improvements in the generation of Erdős–Rényi random networks.  SocNetV already supported the G(n,p) model where edges are created with Bernoulli trials, but the new version includes the G(n,M) model as well. In this model, a new random network is created with n nodes and M edges. 

Also, in the new version there are new advanced dialogs for easier random network generation: Scale-free, Erdos-Renyi, and Small-World.

]]>
SocNetV v1.7 released with lots of goodies! https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v17-released-with-lots-of-goodies https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v17-released-with-lots-of-goodies Wed, 20 May 2015 17:00:00 +0000 A new SocNetV release hit the road today. Version 1.7 solves a number of bugs and brings lots of interesting and useful new features to our users. Binaries for Windows, Mac and Linux are already available in the project's Downloads page. Here's what's new...

Up to now, when you wanted to edit a node you had to right click on it and select a single property to edit (color, label, etc). That was awfully user-unfriendly. So, v1.7 brings a nice Node Properties which incorporates all different operations in one place. Just right click on a node and select Node Properties (Ctrl+X, Ctrl+P for key-junkies) to bring up the properties dialog.

As you see, you can enter a label, change the node size (and "value" in coming versions), edit the node color and select a proper shape. And your changes will be done in one step (and you can see them happening live in the background) For instance clicking on the red color button will bring up a nice Colors dialog where you can select every possible color:

 

A handy new feature is also the ability to select and edit nodes in groups.  This means, that nodes can be selected by left clicking on the canvas and holding while dragging to create a selection rectangle. All nodes inside the rectangle are thus selected and can be edited at once.

Just select some nodes, and  right click on a selected node or somewhere on the canvas, to open the context menu. From there, select Node Properties.

Note that the context menu informs you how many nodes you selected to edit.

The group Node Properties dialog is identical with that for a single node.

Labeling multiple nodes at one? Yes! The only thing you have to note is that when you enter a label for multiple nodes, SocNetV will suffix it with the "nodenumber" of each edited node.

Here's the finished outcome:

Also, there are now the familiar Select All (Ctrl+A) and Select None (Ctrl+Shift+A) shortcuts to select all nodes
  at once.


 

A very useful new feature in SocNetV v1.7 is the Network File Previewer.  Did we need something like that? Yes we did! Due to the different codepages used by the Windows, Linux  and Mac, a network file saved i.e. in Windows containing  non-Latin characters (such as é or some curillic кЧДЛХКЮ) could not be loaded by SocNetV because  the program always tried to read and write in the OS locale codepage (note that from this version all loading and saving is done in UTF-8).

Furthermore, a bug in GraphML writing function meant that SocNetV always used UTF-8 as Document Encoding,  even when the file was not UTF-8. 

The solution offered from this version is this nice File Previewer which by default appears when loading any file.

 With it, the user previews the file in many different encodings to find the correct one, namely the one where all characters appear as they should.

By pressing OK, the file  is loaded and the network is displayed on the canvas.

Notes on this feature:  

  • Linux and Mac users should always use UTF-8, except when they try to load files saved in Windows computers.
  • Windows users should probably use Windows-1253, except when  they want to load files saved in Mac/Linux or files containing non-latin chars (i.e. Russian).
  • Russian Windows users should probably use KOI8-R encoding.
  • By default, UTF-8 is used for writing files. This means SocNetV by default uses UTF-8 codec for all   input and output textstreams, such as network files.

That's all for now. Hope you enjoy v1.7 and stay tuned for the coming versions.

In case you spot a bug in v1.7 please report it here.

We would also like to hear new feature requests from you! If you have something to propose or ask, visit our 'blueprints' listing  and add your own request.

For a complete changelog, see out ChangeLog :)

]]>
SocNetV v1.6 released with a working web crawler https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v16-released-with-a-working-web-crawler https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v16-released-with-a-working-web-crawler Tue, 12 May 2015 08:06:00 +0000 The SocNetV project has just released its latest version 1.6. Binaries for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are available from the Downloads menu.

The new version brings back the web crawler feature which has been disabled in the 1.x series so far.

To start the web crawler, go to menu Network > Web Crawler or press Shift+C.

A dialog will appear, where you must enter the initial web page (seed). You may also set the maximum nodes/pages (default 600) and what kind of links to crawl: internal, external or both.  By default the spider will crawl both internal and external links.

 

The new web crawler is vastly improved from the 0.x releases and consists of two parts: a 'spider' and a 'parser', each one running on its own thread.

The spider visits a given initial URL (i.e. a website or a single webpage) and downloads its HTML code. The parser scans the downloaded code for 'href' links to other pages (internal or external) and adds them to a queue of URLs (called frontier).

As URLs are added in the queue, the spider visits them and downloads their HTML which is scanned for more links by the parser, and so on...

The process is multithreaded and completed in a matter of seconds even for 1000 urls.

The end result is the 'network' of all visited webpages as nodes and their real links as edges. To help you find some patterns right away, the nodes are by default displayed with their node sizes reflecting their outDegree.


 

From there, you can analyze the network using the SNA tools provided by SocNetV.

Please note that the parser searches for 'href' links only in the body section of the HTML code.

 

]]>
SocNetV as "intelligence" source for Dolphin-site operators https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-as-intelligence-source-for-dolphin-site-operators https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-as-intelligence-source-for-dolphin-site-operators Mon, 04 May 2015 10:29:00 +0000 Can use SocNetV to analyze a virtual "social network" ? Yes you can. For instance, you could analyze social interactions (i.e. mentions) between "friends" in that virtual network. Apparently, SocNetV cannot grab their link/connections data on its own (forget the built-in web crawler; it cannot get and parse private data), but if you can extract the data for yourself and transform them into a proper GraphML format, then SocNetV will happily load and visualize the virtual social network so that you can analyze its properties. This seems to be the case with Dolphin social network software, an open source platform for social networks.

The guys behind the project kindly informed me that they are about to use SocNetV as an "intelligence" source for Dolphin-site operators. Dolphin and its mobile-friendly sibling Trident support social connections, conversations, locations and other social-graphs related data types, which can be used by SocNetV depending on operator needs. For example, "if an air-line company launches a social network for clients, they could use SocNetV to analyze connections between friends within network, trends of their discussions and posts, and then use that to plan which routes would be in demand and when. Later they could create special offers to relevant segments of the network and advertise it within their site". Seems an interesting use for SocNetV. Kudos to boonex guys!

]]>
SocNetV presentation at the 15th RMLL conference (video) https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-presentation-at-the-15th-rmll-conference-video https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-presentation-at-the-15th-rmll-conference-video Sun, 02 Nov 2014 23:00:00 +0000 Kamel Ibn Aziz Derouiche presented SocNetV at the "15emes Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre" conference held in Monpellier on July 2014. The presentation is based on an older version of the application but it can be useful introduction to french speaking social researchers. Below you can watch a full video from his presentation (FRENCH):

]]>
SocNetV 1.5 released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-15-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-15-released Fri, 10 Oct 2014 14:31:00 +0000 A new version of SocNetV has just been released! Version 1.5 brings standardization, many bugfixes and nice new features (see below). Packages for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are available from the Downloads page.

Notable among the new features are:

  • Prominence Scores on Valued Networks:
    A new SSSP-solver algorithm has been implemented (Dijkstra) which allows SocNetV to compute prominence indices on weighted networks. When the graph edges are weighted, the application asks the user if it should consider weights in computations.  Also, it asks the user if weights should be inverted or not.  This question is crucial since edge weights can have different meanings. For instance they can denote cost or votes.  If they denote cost, then the geodesics should be those paths  with minimum value. But, if the weights denote votes, then the geodesics could be those path with maximum value. In the latter case, the user should choose to invert weights so that Dijkstra compute the desired paths and distances.
  • Standardized Centrality and Prestige scores:
    From this version all actor prominence indices report standardized scores (from 0.0 to 1.0) where applicable. If there is no known formula to compute such a standardized score for actors, then SocNetV computes a std score by dividing the original index score by the sum of index scores of all actors. For instance, this happens  on PRP.  Warning: If the original prominence index has range from 0 to 1 (i.e. EC and IRCC), SocNetV considers that as std and does not compute anything else.
  • Prominence layouts are relative to highest score
    From this version, all (circular, level and nodal size) visualization layouts based on prominence scores are graphed relative to the highest score in the network, instead to the theoretical max (1.0). For instance in a circular layout, say the actor with the highest CC has score 0.8. That node will appear to the center of the circular layout. All other actors will appear on circles of radius relative to that highest score. I.e. an actor with score 0.4 will appear on a circle of radius 50%  further from the screen center, while another actor with CC score 0.2 will appear on a circle of radius 75% further from the actor with the highest score.
  • Skip isolates, if you like
    The user can omit isolates and compute prominence indices for the resulting graph.
  • Graph connectedness
    SocNetV can report the network connectedness (whether it is a connected graph or digraph, unilateral etc). Also it can check whether isolates exist that can be removed so that the graph can become connected
  • CC drops isolates by default
    Up to v1.4, SocNetV did not compute CC scores if the network had  isolate nodes, instead it urged the user to use IRCC. From this  version, SocNetV checks if isolates exists and automatically drops them in order to compute CC scores.
  • New datasets
      - Stephenson and Zelen (1989): Network of 40 AIDS patients
      - Stephenson and Zelen (1989): IC test dataset, 5 actors
      - Wasserman and Faust: star, circle and line graphs of 7 actors

Also, the following bugs have been fixed:

  •   #1358678 Fix GDC calculation in weighted networks
  •   #379558 Force-Directed algorithms produce poor layouts
  •   #1365028 Methods isOutLinked & setOutLinked do not consider relations
  •   #1365504 centralityInformation() should symmetrize adjacency matrix
  •   #1366625 click on an edge does not select the right edge
  •   #1369171 Group IC calculation yields incorrect results
  •   #1371208 wrong power centrality scores
  •   #1364955 vertices() should report only enabled vertices
  •   #1369336 pagerank prestige reports wrong scores
  •   #1370528 socnetv cannot build on non-x86-based architectures
  •   #1364320 remove SRS pdf and fix spelling errors in Code
  •   #1364361 SocNetV does not remember last directory used by user
  •   #1378346 Cannot change size and value of a node

Have fun!

]]>
A short tour of the new features of SocNetV v1.4 https://socnetv.org/news/?post=a-short-tour-of-the-new-features-of-socnetv-v14 https://socnetv.org/news/?post=a-short-tour-of-the-new-features-of-socnetv-v14 Wed, 03 Sep 2014 11:06:00 +0000 Over the last weeks, the Social Networks Visualizer (SocNetV) project has released two new versions which brought useful new features and of course a lot of bugfixes. The latest v1.4 closed even 4 years old bugs!

socnetv-v1.4-erdos-random-social-network

SocNetV v1.4:erdos-random-social-network

The strongest new feature of SocNetV is multirelational editing. You can now load or create a social network on the canvas, for instance depicting the friendship ties between kids in a classroom, and then add a new relation (Cltr+Shift+N) which it might depict i.e. “likes” between pairs of the same clasroom kids. And you can be do this very easily as we will demonstrate in this article.

Let’s say you create the social network of 20 kids.  You can press Ctrl+A to add node and Ctrl+L to add link, or double click on the canvas to add a node and middle click on a node to start a new link from it. Or  you can just import the network from GraphML, Pajek, Adjacency Matrix, UCINET (fullmatrix and edgelist1 formats) or a simple list file.

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship

Since the edges depict ties of friendship let’s name this (yet unnamed) relation accordingly. Either press Ctrl+Shift+N or just the + button on the far right side of the toolbar and SocNetV will pop up a nice dialog informing what this is all about and prompting you to enter a first relation name. Note: The same dialog pops up when you add the first link in a new network.

socnetv-v1.4-20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-naming-relation

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-naming-relation

Now, the toolbar Relation widget says we are editing on the friendship relation. Whenever we want to, we can press again on the + button to add a second relation.

socnetv-v1.4-20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-adding-relation

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-adding-relation

Let’s say this new relationship is about groups or more specifically who the kids consider their group leaders. For simplicity, let’s name the new relation “groups”.

socnetv-v1.4-20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-adding-relation-2

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-adding-relation-2

Now, when we press OK, SocNetV will change to a new relation called “groups”. This means it will remove from the canvas the edges belonging to the “friendship” relation and leave only the actors (kids). Thus, you are free to link them together with ties of the new relation:

socnetv-v1.4-20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-new-relation-no-links

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-new-relation-no-links

So, let’s create some “groups leader” links. As usual middle-click on a node to start a link and then middle-click again to another node to draw the new directed edge. You can even add new nodes if you like, but you cannot remove since that would alter the now hidden “friendship” relation as well. Maybe we’ll fix that too in a later release:

socnetv-v1.4-20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-new-relation-adding-links

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-new-relation-adding-links

When you’re done editing, you can perform analysis and apply visualization layouts as usual – only in this case the actions will consider only the links of the active relation (groups). You can use shortcuts (Ctrl+1 to 8, Y,K, R to analyze and Ctrl+Shift+1 to 8 etc to circular layout) or select a layout from the handy toolbox in the left side of the window: Visualize > By Prominence Index. For instance select Index: Betweenness Centrality and Layout Type: Circular. Hit Apply et voila…

socnetv-v1.4-20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-new-relation-betweennes-circular-layout

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-new-relation-betweennes-circular-layout

Now, you see who’s prominent and who’s not in terms of betweenness centrality scores. But this layout considers only the “groups” relation. Wouldn’t be nice to have a means to visually depict the centrality scores in the first relation and compare it at once with the same index scores in the second relation? That can be done, and easily too.

First, shift to the first relation, either by hitting the left arrow button in the toolbar or by pressing Ctrl+Left arrow key on the keyboard. SocNetV will hide the ties of the “groups” relation, load the “friendship” relation and draw its edges. But it will also keep the circular betweenness layout of the second relation we had already applied.

socnetv-v1.4-20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-first-relation-betweennes-circular-layout-of-the-second

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-first-relation-betweennes-circular-layout-of-the-second

Now, all you need is to select from Visualize > By Prominence Index the same index (Betweenness Centrality) but this time select Layout Type: Nodal size. SocNetV will calculate the Betweenness Centrality score of the actors in the current (friendship) relation and change their node size to reflect the score of each one. The larger a node is, the highest BC score has with regards to the “friendship” relation. At the same time, node positions will remain the same – they will still reflect the BC score of each actor with regards to the “groups” relation.

socnetv-v1.4-20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-first-relation-nodal-betweennes-circular-layout-of-the-second

SocNetV v1.4: 20-kids-classroom-social-network-friendship-first-relation-nodal-betweennes-circular-layout-of-the-second

So, now you have a mixed layout. Nodal size reflects “friendship” BC scores while positioning gives is a hint for “groups” BC scores. Thus, actor 4 is very prominent as a friend but not so prominent as a group leader.

Isn’t that nice or what?

Loading and saving multirelational social networks

Social Networks Visualizer v1.4 also supports loading multirelational networks (at the moment only from UCINET formatted files) and saving such networks as well.

But there’s a caveat in saving. SocNetV will not save all the relations of the network at once in the same file, rather it will only save the active relation. You will have to change to the other relations and then save them to separate files. This is a problem that will be also fixed in v1.5.

If you like, you can test multi-relation network loading with the new dataset: Freeman’s EIES networks. Just press F7 and select that dataset. SocNetV will even display a short message with info about the dataset (not displayed in this screenshot).

socnetv-v1.4-freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-open

SocNetV v1.4: freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-open

Then SocNetV will load the three-relations network of 32 actors at once and let you switch between relations and analyze them very easily… This is the status of the network at TIME 1

socnetv-v1.4-freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-1

SocNetV v1.4: freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-TIME-1

Shift to the next relation, “TIME 2″, and select the layout of your choice. In this example the actors are displayed in levels of BC scores (from top to bottom) while node sizes also reflect the same scores.

socnetv-v1.4-freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-2

SocNetV v1.4: freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-TIME-2

If you prefer hard data,  just view the scores. From the left toolbox Analyze > Prominence, select Betweenness Centrality. The report will be displayed at once. One click only.

socnetv-v1.4-freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-analysis

SocNetV v1.4: freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-analysis

Or select  Distances > Geodesics Matrix to calculate the number of geodesics (shortest paths) between pairs of actors.

socnetv-v1.6-freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-geodesics

socnetv-v1.6-freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-geodesics

Or you might need a Triad Census. It’s as easy as it gets. From Analyze > Clusterability select Triad Census.

socnetv-v1.4-freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-triad-census

SocNetV v1.4: freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-triad-census

The same goes for displaying the distances (length of shortest path) between actors:

socnetv-v1.4-freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-distances

SocNetV v1.4: freeman-EIES-networks-multirelational-distances

 

Memory optimizations

Apart from the aforementioned new features (multiple relations and nodal size layout), the latter versions of SocNetV and especially v1.4 are more optimized for low memory consumption and speed. In our tests on Intel i5 CPU and 4GB RAM, version 1.4 could easily load and display networks of 1000 actors and 10000 edges in a few seconds.  And doing that it consumed under 400MB RAM.

In the screenshot below, SocNetV v1.4 has created an Erdos-Renyi random network of 1000 actors connected with more than 40.000 edges. It was created in a QuadCore i5, 16GB RAM, in 1 minute.
The mixed circular-nodal layout reflects the BC score of each node. To the left, in the Statistics tab of the toolbox, network statistics such as Actors, Edges, and Density are displayed. Selecting a node, SocNetV displays its InDegree, OutDegree and clustering coefficient as well.

socnetv-v1.4-random-erdos-renyi-1000-actors-40000-edges-betweenness-circular-nodal-layout

SocNetV v1.4: random-erdos-renyi-1000-actors-40000-edges-betweenness-circular-nodal-layout

Versions 1.3 and 1.4 fixed a lot of bugs too (see ChangeLog). Nevertheless, do not consider SocNetV bugfree yet. Test it, play with it, but always verify you data. Or if in doubt just open a bug report so that we can help you out.

]]>
SocNetV v1.4 released! https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v14-released https://socnetv.org/news/?post=socnetv-v14-released Mon, 01 Sep 2014 17:44:00 +0000 Today is a fine day to release another SocNetV update. Version 1.4 brings consistency to the application since it fixes many long standing bugs (i.e. #514264 and #713617) while ups its capabilities with new features.

For instance a new feature is that SocNetV may now layout the social network so that node sizes reflect a selected prominence index score of each node. And this can be done for every index that SocNetV calculates: Degree, Closeness, Influence Range Closeness, Betweeness, PageRank, Proximity, Eccentricity, Power, etc.

Furthermore,  version 1.4 lets you import edgelist1 UCINET format i.e.

    dl
    N=48
    format=edgelist1
    data:
    1 2 4
    1 3 2
    1 6 2
    1 8 2 

Also, we changed the shortcuts for node and edge removal to Ctrl+Backspace and Shift+Backspace respectively.  Furthermore, you can now click on a node and then press Ctrl+Backspace to remove it (the same goes for edges).

As usual a new but well-known dataset has been added, with four different versions. It is Freeman's EIES networks which you can recreate either in multirelational mode (32 actors) or in one single relation of 48 actors.

See the complete ChangeLog for more info and complete list of bugfixes. 

Source code, packages and executables for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows are available to download.

Have fun!

]]>