CONSTRUCTING INTERACTIVE NETWORK VISUAL INTERFACES

In this paper we present an object-oriented system for constructing in teractive visualization of complex, hierarchical, and time-varying net works. Our system consists of three core components: a unified structu re for the acquisition, storage, and query of network data; a C++ netw ork base class for handling the common functionality in network visual interfaces; and a methodology for using Tcl/Tk to tie the network vie ws together. Our system contains a suite of innovative network views. One of its main advantages is its open, unified, and efficient framewo rk for customizing network views. We illustrate our system with two sa mple applications.