Ego networks are an interesting concept within the realm of network visualization using graph analysis, as they allow us to easily see direct connections within the network of a particular individual. Using Gephi, we can navigate large networks using this technique, which enables us to filter and view only those connections relevant to our current criteria. All remaining nodes and edges are simply filtered out from a visual perspective, giving a very clean look at individual networks. The ego network can be set to a depth of 1 if the goal is to show only direct connections, or to 2 or even 3 if our goal is to see the so-called “friends of friends” via indirect connections.
My latest venture uses a network of all MLB players between 1901 and 2015, which consists of a somewhat unwieldy mass of nearly 17,000 players with close to 1.2 million connections. Even when we cluster the results using Gephi’s modularity class option, it is still a difficult network to navigate, both from a visual perspective and a resource allocation viewpoint. Here’s a view of the network as a whole:
While the modularity class coloring helps identify groups of related players, there is an awful lot of small detail that is not easily discerned, and the graph is computationally expensive, often crashing my version of Gephi if I try to do too many things with the full graph. Fortunately, ego networks are a great way to filter the data for greater understanding of some of the details within the network.
Using the ego network option as a filter, I am able to view the individual network of any player in the graph with ease. Here’s a look at my settings for the Miguel Cabrera ego network, and the resulting network, which is now a very manageable 300 nodes and 11k edges:
With a little editing in Gephi, such as increasing the size and adjusting the color for the central node, I can easily create a series of ego networks that can later be exported to a JSON format for use with Sigma.js. These can then be turned into interactive web-based networks quite easily. Here, we change the existing node settings so that the Cabrera node stands out in the graph. First, we locate Cabrera’s record in the data worksheet, and then select the node edit menu option:
This then takes us to the node properties, where size and color can be edited:
If this step causes some overlap in the graph, we can easily run the Noverlap layout algorithm to optimize graph spacing. Here’s a view of the completed Cabrera network after using Sigma.js and tweaking a few of the config settings:
As of now, there are five of these ego networks available for viewing on the visual-baseball site. They can be found here. I promise more to come in 2017 as time permits. Update – 25 networks as of 1/15/2017.
