Graph Pattern Analysis with PatternGravisto

Abstract

The analysis of patterns in graphs has applications in many fields of science. We propose a new method for analyzing graph patterns consisting of a user-friendly and flexible mechanism to specify patterns, an algorithm to recognize multiple appearances of patterns in a target graph, a pattern preserving layout algorithm, and a navigation technique to explore the underlying structure of the graph given by the patterns. This method has been implemented in a tool called PatternGravisto. We demonstrate the utility of our approach with the example graphs from the Graph Drawing Contest 2003 which cover problems from biology and sociology.