Network Diagram

Network diagrams can vary greatly depending on whether they are depicting social networks, telecommunications network diagrams, transportation networks, electrical networks, water networks, etc. However, ultimately, they are all graphs comprising nodes and edges, where the edges are either directed or undirected. Each edge can have values applied to them (e.g., cost, geographical distance, time, money, bandwidth, energy, etc.), creating a ‘weighted graph’, to convey different meanings. Or, an edge representing a social tie may communicate the frequency of interaction, or different kinds of social ties. Or, an edge representing a leg in a route might communicate the maximum speed, or traffic impedance. Networks can also be characterized in terms of their structure, whether conveying social structure or a structure of technical dependencies - whether centralized, dense, fragmented, open or closed.