Friday, October 12, 2007

Use Visone to make your first network map

I often get asked about network mapping software. I switch back and forth between several programs depending on what I want to do. For most, I usually recommend NetDraw. However, for those wishing to make very simple maps, another excellent choice is Visone.

You can easily run Visone with the "webstart" option available here. Once you have it running, the picture below hints at how easy it is to (1) give yourself a starting set of nodes by creating a "random" graph with no edges, and (2) use "edit mode" to make your nodes look as you wish and add edges between them. Then you can use "analysis mode" to drag nodes around and try different automatic layouts, etc.I use Visone to make all the illustrations in my Introduction to Network Mathematics, but I don't use it for consulting because it is licensed only for non-commercial use.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License and is copyrighted (c) 2007 by Connective Associates except where otherwise noted.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Bruce,

I am a frequent user of Visone in my consulting practice. It is a very powertool to use in a workshop setting. See my blog at http://peterbijkerk.blogspot.com/ for a brief comment. Best regards, Peter