CxfExporter
31 December 2011
Introduction
Export networks to the CXF format.
Plugin Owner's Notes
This plugin allows Gephi's users to export networks to the CXF format. CXF is the network format used by Cuttlefish (http://cuttlefish.sourceforge.net), a network workbench developed at the Chair of System Design at ETH Zurich (http://www.sg.ethz.ch).
Loxa Web Site Export
10 May 2011
Introduction
Loxa Web Site Export Plugin is a plugin developed for Gephi whose purpose is to allow easy publication of the analysis, descriptions and findings. The result of the implementation of the plugin is a fully functional website and easy customization, thereby allowing to publish the results of their work
Plugin Owner's Notes
Features:
Lets build a Web site for the project.
Workspaces are the analysis performed, of which you can see your image (using Seadragon), see statistics (number of nodes and arcs, weight and density of the graph), description of the analysis and lets you download files (from the graph and image - pdf format).
The analysis information is stored in a JSON file for easy editing, which supports HTML tags to enhance your presentation.
The most important and significant findings are displayed in the bottom of the image.
Full AJAX for asynchronous calls to the server to see statistics for each analysis.
It works in most modern browsers (tested: Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer).
Graph Streaming
9 November 2010
Introduction
The purpose of the Graph Streaming API is to build a unified framework for streaming graph objects. Gephi’s data structure and visualization engine has been built with the idea that a graph is not static and might change continuously. By connecting Gephi with external data-sources, we leverage its power to visualize and monitor complex systems or enterprise data in real-time. Moreover, the idea of streaming graph data goes beyond Gephi, and a unified and standardized API could bring interoperability with other available tools for graph and network analysis, as they could start to interoperate with other tools in a distributed and cooperative fashion.
Plugin Owner's Notes
With the increasing level of connectivity and cooperation between systems, for a system that aim to be interoperable, it is imperative to comply with the available standards. Graph objects are abstractions that can represent a wide range of real-world structures, from computer networks to human interactions, and there are a lot of standards to exchange graph data in different formats, from text-based formats to xml-based formats. But the real-world structures are constantly changing, and the current formats are not suitable to exchange such type of dynamic data.
A lot of well-established systems already stream data to its users using a streaming API. Twitter for example defined a Streaming API to allow near-realtime access to its data. They are using two different formats: XML and JSON, but JSON is strongly encouraged over XML, as JSON is more compact and parsing is greatly simplified.
We are not the first to implement a Graph Streaming API, and another very interesting experience is the GraphStream Java Library. It is composed of an API that gives a way to add edges and nodes in a graph and make them evolve. The graphs are composed of nodes and edges that can appear, disappear or be modified, and these operations are called events. The sequence of operations that occur in a graph is seen as a stream of events.
So, as other people already had successful experiences with graph streaming, why not start our work based on these experiences? That’s what we are doing, and beyond finding these experiences very useful, we are also trying to be compatible with the available work. This Gephi Graph Streaming release is using two formats: JSON for flexibility, and a text-based format, based in the GraphStream implementation.
To illustrate how simple it will be to connect to a master, this video shows Gephi connecting to a master and visualizing the received graph data in real time. The graph in this demo is a part of the Amazon.com library, where the nodes represent books and the edges represent their similarities. For each book, a node is added, the similar books are explored, adding the similar ones as nodes and the similarity as an edge.
The Graph Streaming specification goes beyond the simple fact that a client can pull data from a master: in fact, clients can interact with the master pushing data to it, in a REST architecture. The same data format used by the master to send graph events to the clients is used by clients to interact with the master.
But what about connecting two different Gephi instances together? One instance will be master, and the other client. Using the Graph Streaming API, a change in a graph at the master’s workspace should cause a change in the client’s workspace, and a change at the client’s workspace will cause it to send requests to the master to update its graph accordingly. Both instances working in a distributed mode. In fact, different people could work in a distributed mode to construct a graph: it’s the Collaborative Graph Construction.
Sources
Source code is hosted on Launchpad.
Seadragon Web Export
26 July 2010
Introduction
Export large networks to the browser, directly from Gephi.
Plugin Owner's Notes
Export networks on the web with the Seadragon dynamic exploration tool.
* When a graph is loaded, go to File > Export > Seadragon Web and get the HTML file ready to use
* Zoom and pan into the graph
* Seadragon is pure Javascript and works on all modern browsers
* As it uses image tiles (like Google Maps), there is no graph size limit
* Export is similar as PDF and includes all settings from Preview
Seadragon is a Microsoft Live Labs application and is released under Ms-PL license (Microsoft's open source license) . Kudos to them for this great library.
Example Sample with Diseasome Network dataset directly exported from Gephi How to use the Plugin
Install the plugin from Gephi, "Tools > Plugin" and find Seadragon Web Export. After restarting Gephi, the plugin is installed in the export menu. Load a sample network and try the plugin. Go to the Preview tab to configure the rendering settings like colors, labels and edges.
Export directly from Gephi Export menu
The settings asks for a valid directory where to export the files and the size of the canvas. Bigger is the canvas, more you can zoom in, but it takes longer time to generate and to load.
Export settings, configure the size of the image
Note that result on the local hard-drive can't be viewed with Chrome, due to a bug. Run Chrome with "--allow-file-access-from-files" option to make it work.
