Sphere Anchored Map: A Visualization Technique for Bipartite Graphs in 3D

Circular anchored maps have been proposed as a drawing technique to acquire knowledge from bipartite graphs, where nodes in one set are arranged on a circumference. However, the readability decreases when large-scale graphs are drawn. To maintain the readability in drawing large-scale graphs, we developed “sphere anchored maps,” in which nodes in one set are arranged on a sphere. We describe the layout method for sphere anchored maps and the results of our user study. The results of our study revealed that more clusters of free nodes can be found using sphere anchored maps than using circular anchored maps. Thus, our maps have high readability, particularly around anchors.