Getting Started with Graphviz

Micah — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:44:22 +0000

I’m getting pretty excited for the first meeting of the PDX-visualization group (which I convinced Ed to expand his R Language Study group into). One of the topics we’ll be going over is Graphviz. It’s old as dirt (ChangeLog goes back to 2000 at v1.7, but I’m guessing it’s at least a decade older) and has long been the de facto UNIX tool chain for creating graphics with code; i.e., without needing a graphics editor. I believe it has only recently adopted a true FOSS license, which may really help its cause. Graphviz use is pervasive in journals and books, and even shows up in wikis (c2, Mercurial). It’s such a simple graphics package to make use of, but a couple early steps might not be obvious to first-timers. I’ve done a bit of exploring to get off the ground — here are some good resources I’ve found.

$ apt-get install graphviz python-pydot python-pygraphviz # Python/Ubuntu friendly
$ man graphviz (will lead to many other pages)
O’Reilly tutorial by Michele Simionato (some other tutorials are not great)
Some flickr example images, some with sample code included
Simplest first use: $ dot hello.dot -Tpng -o hello.png && firefox hello.png
Use from Python
Plug Graphvis into your wiki (MoinMoin)

I (with Tim) am also planning to show some of our progress on visualizations for uGraph, so be sure to show up for the meeting. And what a fantastic group of folks: many entrepreneurs and data miners. Should be a great after-party!

Micah Elliott » graphviz

Getting Started with Graphviz