A fast multi-level layout for social network visualization

We describe a fast multi-level layout for visualizing social networks, which can visualize social networks high quality and rapidly. There are two innovations in our fast multi-level layout. Firstly, we proposed a new graph multi-layered compression method based on random walk. The multi-layered compression process groups vertices to form “planet” systems and then abstract these “planet” systems as new vertices to define a new graph and is repeated until the graph size falls below some threshold. And we also proposed a new single level force-directed layout based on sampling. The multi-level layout process can be accelerated based on these two innovations. Finally, we have evaluated our layout on several well-known data sets. The experimental results show that our layout outperforms the state-of-the-art method.