Chapter 1. Getting to know graph visualization
This chapter covers
- Getting to know graphs as data models
- Why graphs are a useful way to think about data
- When to visualize graphs, and the node-link drawing concept
- Other visualizations of graph data and when they’re useful
In December 2001, the Enron Corporation filed for what was at the time the largest ever corporate bankruptcy. Its stock had fallen from a high of $90 per share the previous year to $0.61, decimating its employees’ pensions and shareholders’ investments in it. The FBI’s investigation into this collapse became the largest white-collar criminal investigation in history as they seized over 3,000 boxes of documents and 4 terabytes of data. Among the information seized were about 600,000 emails between key executives at the organization. Although the FBI took pains to read every email individually, the investigators recognized that they were unlikely to find a smoking gun—people committing complex financial fraud seldom disclose their actions in written form. And in 2001, emails were only starting to become the primary means of internal communications; lots of information was still exchanged via phone calls.