subgraph | Getting Under the Water

In a previous post I wrote about highlighting a subgraph of a larger network graph. In response to this post, I was asked how extract a subgraph from a larger graph while retaining all essential characteristics among the extracted nodes.

Vinay wrote:

Dear Will,
The code is well written and only highlights the members of a subgraph. I need to fetch them out from the main graph as a separate subgraph (including nodes and edges). Any suggestions please.

Thanks.

Extract subgraph
For a given list of subgraph members, we can extract their essential characteristics (i.e., tie structure and attributes) from a larger graph using the iGraph function induced.subgraph(). For instance,

library(igraph)                   # Load R packages

set.seed(654654)                  # Set seed value, for reproducibility
g <- graph.ring(10)               # Generate random graph object
E(g)$label <- runif(10,0,1)       # Add an edge attribute

# Plot graph
png('graph.png')
par(mar=c(0,0,0,0))
plot.igraph(g)
dev.off()

g2 <- induced.subgraph(g, 1:7)    # Extract subgraph

# Plot subgraph
png('subgraph.png')
par(mar=c(0,0,0,0))
plot.igraph(g2)
dev.off()

Graph

Subgraph

Here is an example of how to highlight the members of a subgraph on a plot of a network graph.

## Load R libraries
library(igraph)

# Set adjacency matrix
g <- matrix(c(0,1,1,1, 1,0,1,0, 1,1,0,1, 0,0,1,0),nrow=4,ncol=4,byrow=TRUE)

# Set adjacency matrix to graph object
g <- graph.adjacency(g,mode="directed")

# Add node attribute label and name values
V(g)$name <- c("n1","n2","n3","n4")

# Set subgraph members
c <- c("n1","n2","n3")

# Add edge attribute id values
E(g)$id <- seq(ecount(g))

# Extract supgraph
ccsg <- induced.subgraph(graph=g,vids=c)

# Extract edge attribute id values of subgraph
ccsgId <- E(ccsg)$id

# Set graph and subgraph edge and node colors and sizes
E(g)$color="grey"
E(g)$width=2
E(g)$arrow.size=1
E(g)$arrow.width=1
E(g)[ccsgId]$color <- "#DC143C" # Crimson
E(g)[ccsgId]$width <- 2
V(g)$size <- 4
V(g)$color="#00FFFF" # Cyan
V(g)$label.color="#00FFFF" # Cyan
V(g)$label.cex <-1.5
V(g)[c]$label.color <- "#DC143C" # Crimson
V(g)[c]$color <- "#DC143C" # Crimson

# Set seed value
set.seed(40041)

# Set layout options
l <- layout.fruchterman.reingold(g)

# Plot graph and subgraph
plot.igraph(x=g,layout=l)

Simple, no?