Matrix Reordering Methods for Table and Network Visualization

Abstract

This survey provides a description of algorithms to reorder visual matrices of tabular data and adjacency matrix of networks. The goal of this survey is to provide a comprehensive list of reordering algorithms published in different fields such as statistics, bioinformatics, or graph theory. While several of these algorithms are described in publications and others are available in software libraries and programs, there is little awareness of what is done across all fields. Our survey aims at describing these reordering algorithms in a unified manner to enable a wide audience to understand their differences and subtleties. We organize this corpus in a consistent manner, independently of the application or research field. We also provide practical guidance on how to select appropriate algorithms depending on the structure and size of the matrix to reorder, and point to implementations when available.