Visualizing Graph Data

Chapter 8. Big data: using graphs when there’s too much data

This chapter covers

• The limits of graph visualization, both web and desktop
• Abstracting individual data endpoints
• Filtering the chart by type or other metrics
• Grouping nodes and links

In chapter 6, we talked about data volumes and explained how it’s not always realistic to draw a chart showing every data endpoint in your data set on the screen at once. This is important to keep in mind when working with large data sets, and some of the techniques we discussed in that chapter, such as allowing the user to navigate the chart, can be useful when working with thousands or even tens of thousands of nodes. One of my company’s clients is a credit card–processing company that handles ...