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Dears Jorge, Kinda, Tassos:

Thanks a lot for your feedbacks.

I have tried to solve the problem within Pajek. To make the graph unweighted and undirected is easy, all there is to do is to symmetrize the network. But the double-node's issue is unsolvable in Pajek. The .csv export doesn't work also because, as Jorge points out, there's no info about the graph, just about the segments' attributes. And to do it manually (in excel or whatever) for graphs with hundreds of thousands of nodes is, of course, impossible.

Nonetheless, Jorge's insight is particularly revealing. In Alasdair Turner's (2007) paper "From axial to road-centre lines" there's the following note (p. 5):
"Directionality is important: you must leave from the segment in the same direction as you arrived. Within our implementation this handled by incorporating 'back' links and 'forward' links for the connections at each end of the segment. If you entered via a 'back' link, the you must leave via a 'forward' link, and vice versa." This seems to be implemented not exactely like this but, like Jorge says, through the duplication of the nodes and through the introduction of a maximum weighted edge between the duplicates.

Now, the point is: to solve the problem of "one-direction-only" paths (quoting Jorge, "the graph can't allow turning back to get a more favourable angle for changing direction"), Depthmap uses a strategy that has nothing to do with the hteoretical construct of the graph itself, but with a detour to solve an implementation issue. If this is allright with normal depthmap analysis, it also makes the Pajek export for segment maps useless in my opinion (if it remains "literal", as it is now). Either the export should be a one-segment/one-node weighted graph (accordingly to the distance metric used, topological, angular or metric), or a simple one-segment/one-node unweighted, undirected graph. The first option is probably best, because the second is easily achieved in Pajek. In any case, having double nodes is meaningless from the point of view of a "bare" network analysis (i.e. outside Depthmap and within any other network analysis package).

I would recommend that, when exporting to Pajek, all double-nodes should be collapsed onto a single one. Otherwise, there's no point in exporting segment maps in .net format. That would be inestimably useful for my work, at least.

One last remark to Kinda's proviso, if topological segment graphs have any analytical interest outside the framework of standard angular analysis. I think they do, because we need to know with which structures we are dealing with, to compare them and to know what it trully entails to use one or another. One thing is to accept them theortically (which, in priciple, we all do), another is to be able to systematically deconstruct them (or to reverse-engineering them, if you like), in order to step on firm ground whenever doing any kind of "deep-mining" research in space syntax.   

Thanks again for all your contributions and for the continuous effort in making Depthmap an increasingly consistent spatial network analysis tool.

All the best,
Miguel



      







De: Jorge Gil <[log in to unmask]>
Para: [log in to unmask]
Enviadas: Segunda-feira, 26 de Novembro de 2012 0:59
Assunto: Re: Problem exporting segment graph to Pajek

Dear all,

I've looked at what Miguel mentions.

First, this is not a problem but a feature of Depthmap. It works how it should, exporting the segment graph created and used by the software.

However, this segment graph is indeed much more complex when compared with the axial graph. So Depthmap could have an extra feature to export a simple version of the segment graph. The CSV export feature exports the segment map (lines and analysis values) and not the graph (the list of connections and their weights).

Because angular distance is used in segment analysis, the graph can't allow turning back to get a more favourable angle for changing direction. The solution in Depthmap is to construct a directed graph, where every segment allows the two directions, but the path only goes forward from one segment to the next. Turning back involves an extra step on the same node with the maximum cost of 180 degrees. For this reason the nodes appear duplicated.


Best,
Jorge


On 25/11/2012 17:44, Al-Sayed, Kinda wrote:
> <pre wrap>
> Dear Miguel,
>
> You could try the transform options in Pajek and create a new network with the arcs converted to edges...etc. Alternatively you could follow the longer procedure in exporting Depthmap data into Pajek file:
> Export your segment map into a CSV file and then convert your Excel file into Pajek via (PajekCreate) – downloadable from the main Pajek website. PajekCreate will help you generate a .net file that you could read in Pajek. Once you have got the segment map you can analyse its "topological" properties in Pajek, similar to the way you do it with axial or convex graph data.
>
> All the best,
>
> Kinda
> ________________________________________
> From: UCL Depthmap [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Miguel Serra [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 25 November 2012 15:21
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Problem exporting segment graph to Pajek
>
> Dear All,
>
> Recently I've noticed that the Pajek export for the segment map/graph seems not to work properly. The number of nodes is doubled in the .net file, some of the edges are converted into arcs and the graph is directed.
>
> I am aware that the segment graph is different from the axial and that there are forward and backward links, to store the directionality of paths. Perhaps the export file has in it information whose utility I'm not aware, but what I wanted was to analyze it in Pajek as a simple undirected and unweighted graph.
>
> Has somebody already encountered this problem?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Miguel
>
> </pre></body>
> </html>
> </html>

-- Jorge Gil
PhD Candidate

TU Delft / Faculty of Architecture
Department of Urbanism
Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy

Julianalaan 134
2628 BL Delft
P.O. Box 5043
2600 GA Delft
The Netherlands

www.tudelft.nl