How to use igraph vertex.shape functionality

Question

Has anyone used igraph's vertex.shape functionality? This http://cneurocvs.rmki.kfki.hu/igraph/doc/R/igraph.vertex.shapes.html was promising but I could not understand. Does anyone have an example of working code?

Answer 1

The verticies are just the nodes in your graph. When you plot them you can have them as rectangles or circles or some other shapes. Whatever you think looks prettiest.

Start by looking at the example on the ?igraph.vertex.shapes page.

g <- graph.ring(10, dir=TRUE, mut=TRUE)
plot(g, vertex.shape="rectangle", layout=layout.circle)

The allowed values for the vertex.shape argument are given by

names(igraph:::.igraph.shapes)
[1] "circle"     "square"     "csquare"    "rectangle"  "crectangle"
[6] "vrectangle" "none"

See ?layout for the allowed values for the layout argument.