“Forced” Force Directed Placement: a New Algorithm for Large Graph Visualization

Graph Visualization is a technique that helps users to easily comprehend connected data (social networks, semantic networks, etc.) based on human perception. With the prevalence of Big Data, these graphs tend to be too large to decipher by the user’s visual abilities alone. One of the leading causes of this problem is when the nodes leave the visualization space. Many attempts have been made to optimize large graph visualization, but they all have limitations. Among these attempts, the most famous one is the Force Directed Placement Algorithm. This algorithm can provide beautiful visualizations for small to medium graphs, but when it comes to larger graphs it fails to keep some independent nodes or even subgraphs inside the visualization space. In this paper, we present an algorithm that we have named "Forced Force Directed Placement". This algorithm provides an enhancement of the classical Force Directed Placement algorithm by proposing a stronger force function. The “FForce”, as we have named it, can bring related nodes closer to each other before reaching an equilibrium position. This helped us gain more display space and that gave us the possibility to visualize larger graphs.