NetSim: a Simulation and Visualization Software for Information Network Modeling

Abstract

For social and technical reasons, various information networks have become an important phenomenon, which it is useful to study and formalize. For this purpose we have developed NetSim, a generic software tool for modeling and simulating diverse network structures. We will see how to use this system to simulate and visualize two quite different network types: a preferential attachment model, and a typical social network. We will also present a modeling language we designed to express different network models to be interpreted by the NetSim system. We will show graphical simulation results that demonstrate the operation of the software.