An Immersive Node-Link Visualization of Artificial Neural Networks for Machine Learning Experts

IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality (AIVR), pp. 33–36

Abstract

The black box problem of artificial neural networks (ANNs) is still a very relevant issue. When communicating basic concepts of ANNs, they are often depicted as node-link diagrams. Despite this being a straight forward way to visualize them, it is rarely used outside an educational context. However, we hypothesize that large-scale node-link diagrams of full ANNs could be useful even to machine learning experts. Hence, we present a visualization tool that depicts convolutional ANNs as node-link diagrams using immersive virtual reality. We applied our tool to a use-case in the field of machine learning research and adapted it to the specific challenges. Finally, we performed an expert review to evaluate the usefulness of our visualization. We found that our node-link visualization of ANNs was perceived as helpful in this professional context.

Authors 3

1. Martin Bellgardt Aachen Visual Computing Institute

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Visual Computing Institute RWTH Aachen University, Germany

2. Christian Scheiderer Aachen Institute for Information Management in Mechanical Engineering

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute for Information Management in Mechanical Engineering RWTH Aachen University, Germany

3. Torsten Kuhlen Aachen Visual Computing Institute

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Visual Computing Institute RWTH Aachen University, Germany