The most generic & flexible data structure is a [[Graph]], so how we visually represent graphs should be the most powerful and awesome visualization, right? Well, sort of. Graphs diagrams *are* a very useful way to represent reality... but they get difficult to read fast. Here's the graph of my notes! ![[Pasted image 20260126201200.png]] See. It's obvious what's going on! A lot things in my [[Diagram Types (index)]] could be considered graph representations. A few that immediately come to mind are [[State Diagrams]], [[Internal Block Diagram]], [[IDEF3]] models, most [[Mind Mapping|mind maps]], much of [[OPM]], [[Entity-Relationship Diagrams]], [[Data Flow Diagram]]s. ## Network Diagrams, Petri Nets, and Graph Diagrams From what I can gather, these terms of essentially synonymous. Any version of a visualization involving interconnected nodes & edges can be called any of those things. Petri Net may have additional mathematical implications that I"m not appreciating, but they look like regular network diagrams from my perspective. They all essentially look like this: ![[IMG_6060 Medium.jpeg]] Some of the prettier looking graph diagrams are [[Arc Diagram & Chord Diagram]]s. ![[Pasted image 20260126194919.png]] ## Real-world Uses ### <= 10 Nodes 10 is a fairly arbitrary cutoff. I'm using it as a [[Proxy Measures|proxy]] for ease-of-interpretations. You can obviously have well-laid out diagrams, or networks that lend themselves to visualization particularly well. ![[Pasted image 20260126201200.png]] Small-ish network diagrams effectively represent: - Existence - what members does the network have - Often with [[Diagram Semantic Mechanisms|adornments]] that illustrate properties of the members (e.g. name, value, age, etc) - Relationships - what is the relationship among those members - Often with adornments that illustrate properties of the relationships (e.g. relationship name, affinity strength, flow amount, conditions, etc) Those two things cover it, but those two things are **powerful and broad**. ### 10+ Nodes - "Shotgun Blast Charts" Network diagrams with more than ~10 nodes start to look like shotgun blasts on paper. HOWEVER - **shotgun blast charts[^1] still have value!** Shotgun blast charts effectively represent: - Global trends, like centralization & connnectedness - Categorization (a la the colors scheme) - [[Simplicity|Complexity]] **** # More ## Source - self [^1]: I'm coining this term now.