Arena3D: Brief introduction to browser-based 3D layout of multilayer networks
Channel: Lars Juhl Jensen
Date: 23/05/2022

A brief introduction to the Arena3D web tool for 3D visualization of multilayer networks. I first explain how multilayer networks can be seen as a middle ground between 2D and 3D network visualization and give a minimal overview of the browser-based user interface, import of data, 2D layout of individual layers, and 3D layout of the layers themselves. I then discuss how one can perform layer assignment based on either nodes or edges, using as examples knowledge graphs, signaling networks, interspecies networks, and STRING networks. I finally discuss how Arena3D primarily targets computational researchers, and what we do together with the Arena3D team to make it easy to use by a broader audience. You may want to watch my short introduction to the core concepts of network visualization first: https://youtu.be/OunX7ISRbgA

0:00 Introduction: web-based tool for 3D network visualization
0:21 Core idea: 2D network layout, 3D network layout, and multilayer networks
1:43 Functionality: data import, 2D layout algorithms, 3D layout of layers, and color schemes
3:20 Defining layers: layers by node type or edge type, knowledge graphs, signaling pathways, interspecies networks, and STRING networks
4:51 Target audience: computational researchers, scripting required for data preparation, and the need for integration with network databases / tools

Arena3D is available at https://arena3d.org/