Section: New Software and Platforms

Small Multipiles

Figure 5. Small Multipiles is software for visualizing temporal networks such as for brain connectivity analysis.

Scientific Description

MultiPiles [12] is a visualization to explore time-series of dense, weighted networks (see Figure 5 ). The interface is based on the physical analogy of piling adjacency matrices, each one representing a single temporal snapshot. Common interfaces for visualizing dynamic networks use techniques such as: flipping/animation; small multiples; or summary views in isolation. Our proposed ‘piling’ metaphor presents a hybrid of these techniques, leveraging each one’s advantages, as well as offering the ability to scale to networks with hundreds of temporal snapshots. While MultiPiles is applicable to many domains, our prototype was initially designed to help neuroscientists investigate changes in brain connectivity networks over several hundred snapshots. The piling metaphor and associated interaction and visual encodings allowed neuroscientists to explore their data, prior to a statistical analysis. They detected high-level temporal patterns in individual networks and this helped them to formulate and reject several hypotheses.

Functional Description

MultiPiles is a visualization interface for the exploration of dense dynamic networks with changing edge weights. Dynamic networks are networks which change topology over time and/or edge weights change over time.

• Participants: Benjamin Bach, Nathalie Henry-Riche, Tim Dwyer, Tara Madhyastha, Jean-Daniel Fekete, Thomas Grabowski

• Contact: Benjamin Bach

• URL: http://visualizingbrainconnectivity.org/multipiles