Multi-type Edge Bundling in Force-Directed Layout and Evaluation

Numerous information visualization techniques are available for utilizing and analyzing large data. Among these techniques, network visualization, which employs node-link diagrams, can determine the relationship among multi-dimensional data. However, when data become extremely large, visualization becomes obscure because of visual clutter. To address this problem, many edge bundling techniques have been proposed. However, although graphs present several edge types, previous techniques do not reflect these edges. In this paper, we propose a new edge bundling method for multi-type co-occurring graphs. In this method, electro-static forces work between each pair of edges; however, if the edges are of different types, then repulsion works between pairs. By bundling edges of the same type, a graph can more clearly show relationships among data. Qualitative evaluation through questionnaires lead to useful knowledge, i.e., the proposed method improves bundling performance more extensively than other related work