Graph Visualization in JavaScript

1. Graph Visualization
2. Importance of JavaScript Libraries
3. Choose the Proper JavaScript Data Visualization Library
4. Situations We Can Go With Graph Visualization Libraries
5. Commercial JavaScript Libraries
6. General Purpose JavaScript Libraries
7. Specialized Open Source JavaScript Libraries
8. Conclusion

JavaScript, a website scripting language, is a cross-platform, lightweight, compiled, and interpreted programming language. Web page development is one of its most well-known uses, but it is also widely used in non-browser environments.

Throughout this article, we discuss how JavaScript is used essentially in Graph Visualization. Visualizing the data using graphs when processing large amounts of data is necessary.

Graph Visualization

Data visualization transforms data into a graphical representation, giving a clear overview at a glance. Also, we can identify trends and patterns of data through visual representations.

Graph visualization is also known as network visualization, a subcategory of data visualization based on graph data—simply representing data in charts like pie charts, bar charts, heat maps, and more. It is common to use the terms “graphs” and “charts” interchangeably.

Companies widely use graphs to gain deeper insights from data and drive better decisions, especially when dealing with large and complex data.

Importance of JavaScript Libraries

As JavaScript has universal browser support, it helps build interactive web applications. Using JavaScript graph libraries, we can integrate graph visualization into those applications.

Graph visualization libraries have been made to reduce the time spent writing code to handle the graph structure. With the offered libraries, we can visualize data, create charts and graphs, add animations to UI and create 3D and 2D images and objects.

A wide range of graphical viewing solutions is available, from open source to commercial. When visualizing data, we have to choose the appropriate method among them.

Choose the Proper JavaScript Data Visualization Library

When picking a suitable library, a better understanding of why and when we use libraries is needed. The below factors should be considered when choosing a library for a project.

1. As some libraries support a handful of types, we first must decide what charts we will build (Pie Charts, Maps, Line Charts or Bar Charts).
2. When the data set is too big and complicated.
3. How is the library responsive for both web and mobile?
4. Browser support for the library.
5. Whether the library well-fits with the JavaScript framework.
6. Customizations we are using or hoping to use
7. Why do we use a paid solution or an open-source library?

Situations We Can Go With Graph Visualization Libraries

When we have a chart in the project that needs to be basic but attractive, with all the components (tooltips, legend, X/Y axis, etc.), or when the application requires responsive, standardized, and elaborate charts, especially when there are multiple types, it is good to use a library.

Using libraries, we can reduce the complexity of the code by not repeating the same repeatedly. Also, libraries have inbuilt animations, and we can apply them too.

When the requirements are small, we can use open-source libraries. Let’s see what libraries we can use in visualizing graphs in JavaScript.

Libraries can be classified as commercial, general-purpose, or specialized open-source libraries.

Commercial JavaScript Libraries

The most extensive features and costs are associated with commercial libraries. Also, they are customizable, comprehensive, and offer excellent customer support.

Therefore, these libraries are well adapted for projects in big corporations. Some of the commercial libraries are listed below.

Ogma

Ogma is one of the most used commercial virtualization software developed by Linkurious. It contains numerous features to develop large-scale interactive graph visualization, such as layout algorithms, annotation layers, geo-mode, styling options, and visual grouping.

All the features come with examples and templates. The Ogma system is also flexible and supports a variety of integration frameworks.

Even though Ogma leverages WebGL rendering, it doesn’t contain a time bar.

Keylines

Keylines, a commercial product by Cambridge intelligence, is a JavaScript software development kit (SDK) to build applications for analyzing complex connected data and visualization. Keylines supports canvas and WebGL rendering.

When compared with other graph visualization engines, Keylines is the most potent library which supports the React framework for integrations. In addition to supporting several graph algorithms, it includes useful layouts and elements such as a time bar.

yFiles

This commercial software library allows users to visualize any diagram network or graph. YWorks develop it.

For easy integrations with other applications, we can use Angular and React frameworks and yFiles. Also, it has a large set of features and extensibility options, while it supports a wide range of desktop, web technologies, and layout algorithms.

GoJS

GoJs is a JavaScript/TypeScript library that can create interactive graphs and diagrams. It has several built-in layouts and extensible tools and works with various frameworks, including React, Angular, and Vue.js.

Canvas and SVG are the only rendering options in GoJS.

General Purpose JavaScript Libraries

Even these libraries are offered at no cost, less potent than commercial JavaScript libraries. Also, have to invest considerable time when adapting these libraries to use cases.

Most using general-purpose JavaScript libraries are below.

D3

D3, the Data-Driven Documents library, is the most used library when visualizing data in charts or graphs. Such as bar charts, line charts, network plots, and geospatial.

Also, D3 is a full-blown data visualization framework that manipulates documents based on data with react-vis-force and react-d3-graph wrapper libraries.

The D3 graph library contains various charts and graphs with reproducible and editable source code. At first, you have to bind arbitrary data into DOM; based on that data, we can create charts and graphs using different methods and functions in the library.

As this library doesn’t have built-in methods, we can’t directly call a method for creating charts or bars. Instead, we have to implement the function on our own.

But with the provided helper functions, implementing functions is easy.

Vega.js

An interactive visualization design can be created, saved, and shared using Vega, a declarative visualization grammar. University of Washington Interactive Data Lab developed Vega.js, licensed under the BSD-3 license.

Data visualization tools such as D3 and Tensorboard have incorporated this framework. Instead of using JavaScript, specifications are written in JSON.

Vis.js

This JavaScript-based visualization library is released under the Apache 2.0 license. Using this open-source canvas library, you can manipulate and interact with large amounts of dynamic data.

Using a Vis library fits well with simple graph visualizations, but extending and building beyond what is already offered is hard. Several freaky features, such as clustering, graph manipulation, and event and layout handling, are also supported.

Additionally, Vis.js is licensed under the MIT license and supports common customization options, such as node styling, labeling, animations, and limited layouts.

G6

G6 and Graphin are the siblings’ libraries that are excellent products by the Ant Visualisation team. They’re both licensed under the MIT license, which provides a set of essential functionalities and mechanisms for developing graph visualization modeling or analysis applications.

The G6 integrates with React via Graphin. Apart, it provides a graph visualization framework based on the canvas.

With these integrations, G6’s library can access additional components like various styling functions and algorithms.

Both libraries are sufficient with the capabilities and tools to visualize small to moderate graphs and aid in the quick building of applications. Also, implementations and API can be somewhat tricky.

Specialized Open Source JavaScript Libraries

Users can use open-source libraries at no cost, the same as general-purpose libraries. But some libraries may have some limitations and also steep learning curves.

Below are some open-source JavaScript libraries.

Sigma.js

Sigma.js is one of the long-standing and popular libraries in graph visualization. Science’s Media Lab maintained and developed this library under the MIT license.

With the new version, Sigma.js splits the graph data structure, which a graphology library manages. It is also possible to integrate Sigma.js with React applications.

Overall, the Sigma.js library is dedicated to plotting graphs of numeric data. Developers can export multiple graphical formats with the use of data efficiently.

And the rendering engine of Sigma.js aids in working fine with both the server and client sides.

VivaGraphJS

With VivaGraphJS, you can render graphs with various rendering engines and layout algorithms without dependency on other libraries. Based on the nodes and the number of connecting edges, the structure of the rendering graphs is different.

Many customization options are available in the library, and it is extensible. With minimal effort, you can customize the appearance of nodes and links, control the layout of the algorithm, and choose the medium for displaying the graph.

Cytoscape.js

Using Cytoscape.js, we can visualize relational data through graphs in commercial and open-source projects. The library is excellent for analyzing and visualizing graph theory data.

It is an all-in-one package for handling the graphing needs and displaying interactive graphs. Moreover, the MIT license is used to license this non-profit library.

In addition to being very optimized, this library is well-supported by the majority of browsers. In addition, desktops and mobile devices are built-in with gesture support.

Developers have to build integrations independently as they have no set integrations.

It is supporting for set theory operations along with graph theory algorithms. Giant companies like Google and Amazon use these libraries due to their quality.

ReGraph

ReGraph is a high-performance but unfinished library. With this library, you can visualize React network graphs in WebGL and build them using D3 and Three.js.

Conclusion

Overall, Graph visualization enables us to understand the relationship of the data easily, even if the data is too large or complicated. Apart from the above-discussed graph libraries, there are more we can use in visualizing data in graphs.

Depending on the user’s needs, they can choose either paid or free libraries to make information interpretable for the end-user.