ZAME: Interactive Large-Scale Graph Visualization

Abstract

We present the zoomable adjacency matrix explorer (ZAME), a visualization tool for exploring graphs at a scale of millions of nodes and edges. ZAME is based on an adjacency matrix graph representation aggregated at multiple scales. It allows analysts to explore a graph at many levels, zooming and panning with interactive performance from an overview to the most detailed views. Several components work together in the ZAME tool to make this possible. Efficient matrix ordering algorithms group related elements. Individual data cases are aggregated into higher-order meta-representations. Aggregates are arranged into a pyramid hierarchy that allows for on-demand paging to GPU shader programs to support smooth multiscale browsing. Using ZAME, we are able to explore the entire French Wikipedia - over 500,000 articles and 6,000,000 links - with interactive performance on standard consumer-level computer hardware.