VOSviewer is a freely available computer program that can be used for the following purposes:
VOSviewer can be used to construct maps based on network data. Maps are constructed using the VOS mapping technique and the VOS clustering technique.
VOSviewer can be used to view and explore maps. It can show a map in various different ways, each emphasizing a different aspect of the map. It offers functionality such as zooming, scrolling, and searching, which facilitates the detailed examination of a map.
VOSviewer is primarily intended to be used for analyzing bibliometric networks. The program can for instance be used to construct maps of publications, authors, or journals based on a co-citation network or to construct maps of keywords based on a co-occurrence network. Various examples of maps constructed using VOSviewer are available here.
VOSviewer has been written in the Java programming language and runs on most hardware and operating system platforms. VOSviewer can be downloaded here. The program can also be started directly by clicking the Launch button below.
In the label view, items are indicated by their label and, by default, also by a circle. For each item, the font size of the item’s label and the
size of the item’s circle depend on the weight of the item.3 If items have been assigned to clusters, each item’s circle is displayed in the color of the cluster to which the item belongs. Alternatively, if colors have been specified for each item individually (using the red, green, and blue columns in a map file; see Subsection 3.1), each item’s circle is displayed in the color of the item. By default, to avoid overlapping labels, only a subset of all labels is visible. Also, by default, no lines between items are displayed. However, this can be changed on the Options tab in the action panel. The label view is particularly useful for a detailed examination of a map.
In the density view, items are indicated by their label in a similar way as in the label view. Each point in a map has a color that depends on the density of items at that point. By default, this color is somewhere in between red and blue. The larger the number of items in the neighborhood of a point and the higher the weights of the items, the closer the color of the point is to red. Conversely, the smaller the number of items in the neighborhood of a point and the lower the weights of the items, the closer the color of the point is to blue. The density view is particularly useful to get a quick overview of the
• Cluster Density View. The cluster density view is available only if items have been assigned to clusters. The cluster density view is similar to the ordinary density view except that the density of items is displayed separately for each cluster of items. In the cluster density view, the color of a point in a map is close to the color of a certain cluster if there are a large number of items belonging to that cluster in the neighborhood of the point. Like in the ordinary density view, items with high weights count more heavily than items with low weights. The cluster density view is particularly useful to get a quick overview, for each cluster separately, of the important areas of a map.
在密度聚类(Cluster Density View)图中,只有节点被分成了不同聚类族才有效。这在这种模式下,每个节点的颜色和其特定的聚类族一致。这种模式对于快速发现每个聚类族非常有用。
• Scatter View. In the scatter view, items are indicated by a small circle. If items have been assigned to clusters, each item’s circle is displayed in the color of the cluster to which the item belongs. Alternatively, if colors have been specified for each item individually (using the red, green, and blue columns in a map file; each item’s circle is displayed in the color of the item. No labels are displayed in the scatter view. By default, lines between items are not displayed either, but this can be changed on the Options tab in the action panel. The scatter view can be useful to get an overview of the general structure of a map. The way in which a map is shown in the scatter view is similar to the way in which a map is shown in the overview panel discussed below.