🧅 LaNet-vi

Large-scale network visualization by k-core decomposition

LaNet-vi draws large networks so that their structure is readable at a glance: nodes are placed in concentric rings by their k-core (or k-dense, or d-core) index, the densest core at the center, with node size following the degree and colors following the index. It is the Python version of the C++ LaNet-vi that produced the well-known Internet AS-level maps (Alvarez-Hamelin, Dall'Asta, Barrat & Vespignani, NIPS 2005; Beiró, Alvarez-Hamelin & Busch, New J. Phys. 2008), and since 5.1.0 it follows the original algorithms.

✨ Features

• 🧅 K-core, k-dense (m-core) and d-core decompositions, weighted k-cores by strength intervals, all as in the C++ LaNet-vi
• 🎯 The LaNet-vi placement: nested components, rings by index, top-core cliques, and the pow/log circle packing of disconnected cores
• 🎨 The LaNet-vi look: rainbow or grayscale color scale, gradient edges, seeded edge sampling, index and degree legends, --window zoom, PNG/PDF/SVG output
• 🔗 K-connectivity of the shells (--kconn), the analysis of Beiró, Alvarez-Hamelin & Busch (2008), as in the C++ tool
• 📂 Plain edge lists (optionally weighted, directed, compressed) and CAIDA AS-relationship snapshots
• 🐍 CLI and Python API with the same settings, also as a YAML file
• ⚙️ Tested on Python 3.11–3.13; the 78k-node AS graph renders in about a minute

📦 Installation

pip install lanet-vi

(or uv pip install lanet-vi). Python 3.11 or newer.

🚀 Quick Start

lanet-vi visualize --input network.txt --output network.png

import networkx as nx
from lanet_vi import LaNetConfig, Network

net = Network(nx.karate_club_graph(), LaNetConfig())
net.decompose()
net.visualize("karate.png")

The input is an edge list, one source target [weight] per line (# comments, .gz/.bz2 accepted):

0 1
1 2 2.5
2 0

The Internet topology

from lanet_vi import LaNetConfig, Network
from lanet_vi.io.readers import read_caida_snapshot

graph, _ = read_caida_snapshot(
    "https://publicdata.caida.org/datasets/as-relationships/serial-1/20251001.as-rel.txt.bz2"
)
net = Network(graph, LaNetConfig())
net.decompose()
net.visualize("internet.png")

examples/ has the full scripts behind the pictures above.

⚙️ Common Options

• --decomp kcores|kdenses|dcores — the decomposition (dcores needs --directed)
• --weighted — the third column is a weight: strength-based cores
• --edges-percent 0.1 — fraction of edges drawn (default 0.5, never below --min-edges)
• --background white — or black (default); --color-scheme col|bw|bwi
• --width 3200 --height 2400 — any size and aspect ratio
• --window 0.25 0.75 0.25 0.75 — zoom: the central half of the picture at full size
• --coord-distribution pow — circle packing of disconnected cores (default: classic rings)
• --seed 42 — reproducible layout and edge sample
• --detect-communities — Louvain communities colored and outlined on the picture (a 5.x addition)
• --cores-file cores.csv — also write the decomposition (CSV, or JSON by extension)
• --config settings.yaml — settings from a file; explicit flags override it

lanet-vi config settings.yaml writes a template with every setting and its default; lanet-vi info network.txt prints the network statistics; lanet-vi generate makes random graphs to try things on.

📖 Documentation

The full documentation is at https://conexdat.github.io/LaNet-vi/ (the same pages as docs/, with search and an API reference generated from the docstrings):

• Usage guide — every CLI option, the configuration file, the Python API
• Visualization guide — how the picture is built: placement, colors, sizes, edges, legends
• Concepts — k-cores, weighted k-cores, k-denses, k-connectivity, d-cores
• Coming from the C++ LaNet-vi — flag translation and what differs
• Examples — the CAIDA scripts

🛠️ Development

git clone https://github.com/CoNexDat/LaNet-vi.git
cd LaNet-vi
uv sync --all-extras
uv run pre-commit install
uv run pytest

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. main is protected: open a pull request and iterate until CI and the automatic Copilot review are green. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full workflow, coding conventions and release process, and SECURITY.md for reporting vulnerabilities.

Citation

If you use LaNet-vi in your research, please cite the software (GitHub's Cite this repository button uses CITATION.cff) and the papers behind the method:

• Alvarez-Hamelin, J.I., Dall'Asta, L., Barrat, A., Vespignani, A. (2006). "Large scale networks fingerprinting and visualization using the k-core decomposition". Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 18.

• Beiró, M.G., Alvarez-Hamelin, J.I., Busch, J.R. (2008). "A low complexity visualization tool that helps to perform complex systems analysis". New Journal of Physics.

🏛️ Heritage

LaNet-vi 5.x is a from-scratch Python rewrite of the original LaNet-vi (Large Network visualization tool), a C++ program developed since 2005 by Mariano G. Beiró and J. Ignacio Alvarez-Hamelin (Universidad de Buenos Aires / CONICET) together with Alain Barrat, Luca Dall'Asta and Alessandro Vespignani. The C++ tool introduced the concentric k-core layout this package is built on and produced, among others, the Internet AS-level maps that made the method known.

• Original releases (1.x to 3.0.1, last one in January 2016) are published on SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/lanet-vi/ under the Academic Free License 3.0.
• Original project homepage: http://lanet-vi.fi.uba.ar/.
• The C++ sources are not part of this repository or of the PyPI package; they remain available at the links above.

License

The Python implementation is released under the MIT License, with the original authors of the C++ version as co-holders of the copyright. The original C++ LaNet-vi remains available under the Academic Free License 3.0 on SourceForge.

Authors

• Esteban Carisimo (Python implementation)
• Mariano G. Beiró (original C++ version)
• J. Ignacio Alvarez-Hamelin (original C++ version)