How to visualize hypergraphs with Python and networkx 

An easy method to draw some hypergraphs via standard graph visualization libraries.

Graphs are awesome, hypergraphs are hyperawesome! Hypergraphs are a generalization of graphs where one relaxes the requirement for edges to connect just two nodes and allows instead edges to connect multiple nodes. They are a very natural framework in which to formulate and solve problems in a wide variety of fields, ranging from genetics to social sciences, physics, and more! But whereas for manipulating and visualizing graphs there are many mature Python libraries, the same cannot be said for hypergraphs.

A graph vs a Hypergraph —Image by the Author

I recently needed to visualize some hypergraphs and could not find any library which satisfied me; moreover, as far as I could see, all of them were representing hypergraphs via Euler diagrams (i.e., like the hand-drawn hypergraph above). Unfortunately, this method was not producing good plots for my use case; what I ended up doing was to represent a hypergraph as a collection of graphs, and plotting them via the awesome networkx library.

I decided to write about my approach to plotting hypergraphs, as it produces quite interesting plots for the kind of data I am looking at lately (essentially Ising models, but containing many body interactions too), and, with some adaptations, it could be of some help to others struggling with hypergraph visualization tasks.

data-science python hypergraph

🔵 Intellipaat Data Science with Python course: https://intellipaat.com/python-for-data-science-training/In this Data Science With Python Training video, you...

Enroll in our Data Science with Python training in Chennai. Best Data Science with Python Training courses in Chennai for 100% Job Placements Support.

🔥Intellipaat Python for Data Science Course: https://intellipaat.com/python-for-data-science-training/In this python for data science video you will learn e...

Master Applied Data Science with Python and get noticed by the top Hiring Companies with IgmGuru's Data Science with Python Certification Program. Enroll Now

Online Data Science Training in Noida at CETPA, best institute in India for Data Science Online Course and Certification. Call now at 9911417779 to avail 50% discount.