Network Explorer: Design, Implementation, and Real World Deployment of a Large Network Visualization Tool

Abstract

This paper describes the process of design, implementation, and real world deployment of a web-based network exploration tool called Network Explorer. We designed Network Explorer based on the expressed needs of our clients and later deployed it as part of a larger system for fraud detection in health care. Our implementation of Network Explorer provides visual interactive access to large-scale network data. As part of the Network Explorer tool we contribute a dynamic group-in-a-box implementation for laying out clusters, and a node navigator widget that aids in the exploration of large networks. We are also contributing two open source components of the Network Explorer for the community to reuse: an in-browser clustering library, and the dynamic group-in-a-box algorithm. We have evaluated the network explorer tool in multiple real-world environments including the fraud detection setting above.