You can use Gephi to visualize dynamical networks. One thing I prefer Gephi for temporal networks is that you can tune the time window of interactions. What you need to do first is to make your data in GEXF format. Gephi can read GEXF format for dynamical networks. There is also a networkx module for writing a file to GEXF format.
So to make a file into GEXF format You need to install pygexf first. Make sure you have lxml as well. Let’s assume your data consists of source, target and time. Source and target are nodes with unique labels and time is time of interaction which is date in our example. Edge is the unique interaction between source and target with start and end time points. OK lets start make a GEXF format (in Python):
from gexf import Gexf gexf = Gexf('Your Name','28-11-2012') #make an undirected dynamical graph graph = gexf.addGraph('undirected','dynamic','28-11-2012',timeformat='date') #you add nodes with a unique id graph.addNode(Source,"source_id") #make edge with unique id, the edge has time duration from start to end graph.addEdge(edge_id,Source,Target,start = Date , end = Date) #write the gexf format to fileout gexf.write(fileOut)
Since you made the data into right format, use latest version of Gephi and import the data. Gephi automatically notify you a timeline on the bottom of the graph. You can enable it and change the time window. The outcome in Gephi looks like this. The graph is showing interactions between banks within the month March.
what if we dont have start and end, i have just year attribute ? can i still make dynamic graph?
If you have only attributes and do not care for the temporal edges, just create a normal gexf file with node attributes as year.