Just how dense are dense graphs in the real world?: a methodological note

Abstract

This methodological note focuses on the edge density of real world examples of networks. The edge density is a parameter of interest typically when putting up user studies in an effort to prove the robustness or superiority of a novel graph visualization technique. We survey many real world examples all being of equal interest in Information Visualization, and draw a list of conclusions on how to tune edge density when randomly generating graphs in order to build artificial though realistic examples.