Hybrid Network Analysis Object

[rossmpersonal]

In Visual Analysis, is there any way to create to a network analysis object which is a hybrid of a Hierarchical network analysis object and an Ungrouped network analysis object that allows both nodes displayed in a hierarchical arrangement and nodes directly linked in a source-target arrangement that does not follow the hierarchy?

Why do I need this? What am I trying to do?

I am trying to create an interactive network analysis object that visualizes a thesaurus. Hierarchical relationships are used to visualize the relationships between broader terms and narrower terms (along the lines of a family tree). This creates several tree-like structures. Source-target relationships are used to visualize the relationships between related terms that do not have a hierarchical relationship (in some cases linking the trees).

Is there any way to accomplish this?

[FalkoSchulz]

Hi,

Unfortunately the network graph in network analysis only supports a force-directed layout algorithm which means nodes are positioned dependent on their place in the network and how well-connected they are. I guess - what you need is some sort of org-chart diagram which is something on the list of visuals to be added to VA but not currently available.

I had a similar challenge not too long ago when visualizing scientific papers around COVID19. The idea was to use SAS visual-text analytics to determine three-levels of topics and then group papers by that as well as link papers together if they reference each other. I ended up creating separate disconnected graphs for each topic as shown here:

SAS VTA - COVID19 (Communities)SAS VTA - COVID19 (Topics)

Not ideal as a hierarchical view/structure may be easier for the audience but it did work out quite ok in the end. I combined the network plot with other visuals in the report to allow easier filtering / drill operations.

Sorry - I don't have the easy answer but maybe some of that helps. 

Regards, Falko

[rossmpersonal]

What is "the list of visuals to be added to VA but not currently available" ?

Is it publicly available?

Does the list show where each visual to be added is in the roadmap?

[FalkoSchulz]

No, that is not published as far as I know. You may be able to get in touch with your local SAS contacts who may have more details around road maps, new features coming, etc.

[rossmpersonal]

Do you know any third-party tools that can do this until this feature is added?

[FalkoSchulz]

You could use the Visual Analytics data-driven content object (doc is here https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/vacdc/8.2/vaobj/p0ppd5f6rdubvbn18zlirr9xshy3.htm) and use any available D3-org chart visualization. There is also an example using Google Org Chart at https://github.com/sassoftware/sas-visualanalytics-thirdpartyvisualizations if you need code snippets to get started. Data-driven content objects require some basic JavaScript development but a great option to include any special data viz into your existing reporting environment. Hope this helps! Falko