Social Network Visualizer / News: Recent posts

Kamel Ibn Aziz Derouiche presented SocNetV at the "15emes Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre" conference held in Monpellier on July 2014. The presentation is based on an older version of the application but it can be useful introduction to french speaking social researchers. Below you can watch a full video from his presentation (FRENCH):... read more

A new version of SocNetV has just been released! Version 1.5 brings standardization, many bugfixes and nice new features (see below). Packages for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are available from the Downloads page (https://socnetv.sourceforge.net/downloads).

Notable among the new features are:

• Prominence Scores on Valued Networks:
  A new SSSP-solver algorithm has been implemented (Dijkstra) which allows SocNetV to compute prominence indices on weighted networks. When the graph edges are weighted, the application asks the user if it should consider weights in computations. Also, it asks the user if weights should be inverted or not. This question is crucial since edge weights can have different meanings. For instance they can denote cost or votes. If they denote cost, then the geodesics should be those paths with minimum value. But, if the weights denote votes, then the geodesics could be those path with maximum value. In the latter case, the user should choose to invert weights so that Dijkstra compute the desired paths and distances.... read more

A new version of SocNetV has just been released! Version 1.5 brings standardization, many bugfixes and nice new features (see below). Packages for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are available from the Downloads page.

Notable among the new features are:

• Prominence Scores on Valued Networks:
  A new SSSP-solver algorithm has been implemented (Dijkstra) which allows SocNetV to compute prominence indices on weighted networks. When the graph edges are weighted, the application asks the user if it should consider weights in computations.  Also, it asks the user if weights should be inverted or not.  This question is crucial since edge weights can have different meanings. For instance they can denote cost or votes.  If they denote cost, then the geodesics should be those paths  with minimum value. But, if the weights denote votes, then the geodesics could be those path with maximum value. In the latter case, the user should choose to invert weights so that Dijkstra compute the desired paths and distances.
• Standardized Centrality and Prestige scores:
  From this version all actor prominence indices report standardized scores (from 0.0 to 1.0) where applicable. If there is no known formula to compute such a standardized score for actors, then SocNetV computes a std score by dividing the original index score by the sum of index scores of all actors. For instance, this happens  on PRP.  Warning: If the original prominence index has range from 0 to 1 (i.e. EC and IRCC), SocNetV considers that as std and does not compute anything else.
• Prominence layouts are relative to highest score
  From this version, all (circular, level and nodal size) visualization layouts based on prominence scores are graphed relative to the highest score in the network, instead to the theoretical max (1.0). For instance in a circular layout, say the actor with the highest CC has score 0.8. That node will appear to the center of the circular layout. All other actors will appear on circles of radius relative to that highest score. I.e. an actor with score 0.4 will appear on a circle of radius 50%  further from the screen center, while another actor with CC score 0.2 will appear on a circle of radius 75% further from the actor with the highest score.
• Skip isolates, if you like
  The user can omit isolates and compute prominence indices for the resulting graph.
• Graph connectedness
  SocNetV can report the network connectedness (whether it is a connected graph or digraph, unilateral etc). Also it can check whether isolates exist that can be removed so that the graph can become connected
• CC drops isolates by default
  Up to v1.4, SocNetV did not compute CC scores if the network had  isolate nodes, instead it urged the user to use IRCC. From this  version, SocNetV checks if isolates exists and automatically drops them in order to compute CC scores.
• New datasets
    - Stephenson and Zelen (1989): Network of 40 AIDS patients
    - Stephenson and Zelen (1989): IC test dataset, 5 actors
    - Wasserman and Faust: star, circle and line graphs of 7 actors... read more

Over the last weeks, the Social Networks Visualizer (SocNetV) project has released two new versions which brought useful new features and of course a lot of bugfixes. The latest v1.4 closed even 4 years old bugs!

SocNetV v1.4:erdos-random-social-network

The strongest new feature of SocNetV is multirelational editing. You can now load or create a social network on the canvas, for instance depicting the friendship ties between kids in a classroom, and then add a new relation (Cltr+Shift+N) which it might depict i.e. “likes” between pairs of the same clasroom kids. And you can be do this very easily as we will demonstrate in this article.... read more

Today is a fine day to release another SocNetV update. Version 1.4 brings consistency to the application since it fixes many long standing bugs (i.e. #514264 and #713617) while ups its capabilities with new features.

For instance a new feature is that SocNetV may now layout the social network so that node sizes reflect a selected prominence index score of each node. And this can be done for every index that SocNetV calculates: Degree, Closeness, Influence Range Closeness, Betweeness, PageRank, Proximity, Eccentricity, Power, etc.... read more

Today is a fine day to release another SocNetV update. Version 1.4 brings consistency to the application since it fixes many long standing bugs (i.e. #514264 and #713617) while ups its capabilities with new features.

For instance a new feature is that SocNetV may now layout the social network so that node sizes reflect a selected prominence index score of each node. And this can be done for every index that SocNetV calculates: Degree, Closeness, Influence Range Closeness, Betweeness, PageRank, Proximity, Eccentricity, Power, etc.... read more

A new version of Social Networks Visualizer is available. SocNetV v1.3 brings new and important features as well as bugfixes and optimizations.

New feature: Multirelational networks
Starting from version 1.3, SocNetV supports multiple relations, that is networks with ties of different kind between actors.

The first time a link is created in a network, SocNetV asks the user to name (or label) the new relation between actors/nodes. ... read more

A new version of Social Networks Visualizer is available. SocNetV v1.3 brings new and important features as well as bugfixes and optimizations. 

New feature: Multirelational networks
Starting from version 1.3, SocNetV supports multiple relations, that is networks with ties of different kind between actors. 

The first time a link is created in a network, SocNetV asks the user to name  (or label) the new relation between actors/nodes. ... read more

After 9 years of relying on pure html files for our web appearance, it was hight time to move the Social Network Visualizer website to a CMS platform with a decent look. For this, we chose the great open-source CMS called GetSimple, which is completely text-based, fast as a shark and user-friendly. The theme is a heavily modified "my-company theme". In the process, we decided we needed a proper news section with history (yep, you will be able to scroll down to our older news finally!) as well as many many screenshots of SocNetV in action from the past to the present time.... read more

SocNetV version 1.2 has been released! It brings a major GUI overhaul, a new conceptualization of “prominence” measures, new importance and reachability measures, many new visualization layouts based on the new indices, and fixes a slew of bugs (see below).

The new conceptualization and the different indices

In social network analysis, structural indices attempt to measure the visibility, the importance or the “prominence” of each node. In the past, SocNetV was generally referring to these indices as “centralities”. From now on, following Wasserman & Faust and Knoke & Burt, it distinguishes two types of prominence indices: Centrality and Prestige.... read more

Binary packages of version 1.1 for Debian and Ubuntu are now available in the Downloads menu. Have fun!
link

A new version of SocNetV is available.
It fixes major bugs found in version 1.0.

Changelog:
- fixed circular guides boundingRect
- fixed weighted graphs inDegree and outDegree centralization calculation
- fixed bug in createDistanceMatrix for Closeness centrality min and max index
- fixed bug in createDistanceMatrix for standard and group Graph and Closeness Centrality calculation
- Changed default arrowSize and colors
- Added dataset: Knocke_Bureacracies_Information_Exchange_Network in pajek format
- nicer createAdjacencyMatrix in Graph to let spaces between weights.
- nicer printout of distance and sigmas matrix
- Changed minimum size of scene and graphicswidget to remove scrollbars
- Enabled SmoothPixmapTransform qpainter render hint by default
- Removed obsolete optimization flag from graphicsview
- Splited createDistanceMatrix in createDistanceMatrix and createNumberOfGeodesics
- Updated manual for NumberOfGeodesicsMatrix option
- Removed unused variable warnings in createDistanceMatrix

After quite some time, a new release of SocNetV. Please welcome, version 1.0.

This is our first ever release based on Qt5 toolkit, and it will be the first ever 1.x version of the project!

SocNetV version 0.90 was the final Qt4 version.

From now on, development will continue only in 1.x series and Qt5. So, if you want to follow SocNetV in the future, it's time to install Qt5 on your computer! Also, source code and version control management have been moved to Git (on SourceForge).... read more

• New feature: Power Centrality calculation
• New feature: Information Centrality (Stephenson & Zelen) calculation
• New feature: radial layout according to Power and Information centralities
• New feature: filter (enable/disable) orphan nodes
• New feature: import two-mode affiliation networks (in sociomatrix format)
• New, faster container for GraphicsWidget Nodes based on QHash
• More automagically recreated known data sets
• Allow really large networks to be loaded without crashing. Still too slowly though.
• Nodes are selectable (but not yet editable) in groups
• Fixed bug #518219: Certain Pajek files might crash SocNetV
• Fided bug #515756: Ctrl+F after a node removal may crash SocNetV
• Fixed bug #515758: Random layout crashes SocNetV, if a node is removed
• Updated user manual to new version features.
• Removed counts of outLinkedNodes, inLinkedNodes and reciprocalLinkedNodes because they were causing too much overhead when loading large networks. The relevant LCDs were also dropped from the UI.

New version 0.70 brings the first implementation of a web crawler in SocNetV. This is still immature code, but mostly works :)
Also, this version fixes a couple of serious bugs in previous version and returns to 0.xx version scheme (Debian and Gentoo didn't like the 0.x.x versioning :)

New SocNetV version 0.6.0 brings a whole lot of changes. Highlights: full GraphML support (GraphML is now the default read/write network format) and edge filtering. Check it out.
Linux users: binary packages will be ready later. Try the source code. Windows users: download the .zip file with executables inside.

By popular demand, we packaged SocNetV v0.51 for Debian and Ubuntu. You can download and install a 32bit package asap.

RPM packages for Fedora 10 and openSUSE 11.1 are now provided by the SocNetV project.

Fixed serious bug in DistanceMatrix method, affecting centralities and layout.

SocNetV is half-way to become stable! This new release brings small world creation, clustering coefficient calculation, PDF exporting, printing and more!

-Weight numbers can be displayed over links.
-DL network format initial support.
-Floating point edge weights are now supported...
-Bug fixes

SocNetV v.0.48 brings a lot of improvements:

--Erdos-Renyi random network creation.
--Removing symmetric edges, now asks what direction to remove.
--New layout method: node sizes according to their indegrees.
--No node limit. Load any network you want (make a coffee while waiting :)).
--loadPajek() recognizes Arcslists and Matrix edges formats.
--Edges are being drawed once (faster loading and node movement).
--Graph API simplification and "standardization"
--New LCD widget displaying network density and some improvements to the dock.
--In-file declared node colors and shapes are used as they should.
--Fixed bugs in removeNode methods.
--Lots of bugfixes in loadPajek() method.
--Documentation update
--Progress Bars (F10) appear when creating random nets > 300 nodes.
--RPM repository for openSUSE at http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/oxy86/openSUSE_11.0
--SocNetV has a new, modern logo. It still resembles a snail though. ;)

New online documentation is available at:
http://socnetv.sourceforge.net/docs/manual.html

New features:
- Initial support for GraphML files.
- New man page and updated online documentation.
- HtmlViewer renders online help with the help of QtWebKit. So QtWebKit module is a new dependancy; in openSUSE, for instance. you need libQtWebKit-devel to compile SocNetV.
- New widget for network rotation.
- New widgets for zooming in toolbar.
- Nodes may have 4 different shapes: circles, diamonds, triangles, boxes and ellipses are supported.
- Cosmetic changes, i.e. new icons, new layout for the left dock.
- Code clean-up in MainWindows Class and Matrix: deleted obsolete members and functions such as nodeExists(), mousePosGW(), Dijkstra, etc.
- Bug-fixes on loading Pajek networks and layout algorithm.

Serafeim Zanikolas (serzan) made a deb package of SocNetV 0.44 and submitted it to Debian Experimental. You can install SocNetV simply by

sudo apt-get install -t experimental socnetv