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Software for Social Networking Diagrams?
jonerik writes "A friend of mine who is attempting to create three-dimensional computer models of social networks is looking for software that can do the job; in her words, 'the computer version of a tinker toy set.' She'd prefer software for the Mac, however she has access to PCs so MS-based software would be okay, too. Anyone have any thoughts on the subject?" Think about molecular modelling, where each "atom" is either an agency or an individual and the "bond" is the connection between the two.
"More specifically, here's what she'd like it to be:
- easy to learn for someone without graphics background- 'I can NOT make a career out of learning it.'
- something like a molecular model of social networks where each node represents an agency and can have many different types of connections. It should at least be able to handle something on the order of 250 interconnected nodes.
- able to edit the model on the fly - adding information as I learn about connections.
- able to rotate the model, enlarge sections to view detail, and maybe somehow attach descriptions to the nodes and connections (so one can identify a connection with a particular agency role or individual)."
To better explain my comment above: The molecular model is too simple. There are many more different kinds and qualities of connections between people than kinds of molecular bonds. So, software to display connections between people would need a far more complex display.
My guess is that no such software exists. This is, apparently, a huge new programming problem. It is also one that would be very valuable to solve.
I did a sociogram of myself once, and discovered that I knew about 200 people (some of them secretaries with whom I worked, and so on). Even just drawing simple lines between people was interesting.
The interesting challenge would be, not to show relationships in a static way, such as "romance", but to show dynamic interaction, such as "B influences A in ideas about psychology".
RDF - the XML format for metadata - essentially describes relationships between resources and is a superset of the problem area you describe. I had a cursory look to see if people had taken the obvious step of using diagram tools to edit rdf and yes they have:
Using DIA and GraMToR and GraphViz and IsaViz and lots lots more
You might also be interested in They Rule which draws some interesting social networks!
While this is all standard 2d editing (I think the 3d editing thing is nonsense btw, unless you actually have a 3d coordinate system then you are actually describing a 2d network diagram) there are other visualisation options which may be interesting. Mindmapping tools allow you to navigate the network of concepts may be interesting as are star trees. Both provide a focussed view on a small part of a much larger network with some context information to help you choose how to navigate. They are more useful for display than authoring.
Hope something in here is useful
-Baz
the sex chart is a 2d rendering of 1500 iinterconnected nodes. I belive they have a utility that gets fed a textfile describing the node relationships, and from that reners the text. This might be usefull to you.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
3D molecules? Try Mage: http://kinemage.biochem.duke.edu/
Warning: these 3D diagrams lose their appeal when the network > 40 nodes. 2D still works the best for large networks.
A few real network maps...
And finally, a brief intro to Social Network Analysis: http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html
Enjoy!