CyAnimator: Simple Animations of Cytoscape Networks [version 2; referees: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

Abstract

CyAnimator (http://apps.cytoscape.org/apps/cyanimator) is a Cytoscape app that provides a tool for simple animations of Cytoscape networks. The tool allows you to take a series of snapshots (CyAnimator calls them frames) of Cytoscape networks. For example, the first frame might be of a network shown from a ”zoomed out” viewpoint and the second frame might focus on a specific group of nodes. Once these two frames are captured by the tool, it can animate between them by interpolating the changes in location, zoom, node color, node size, edge thickness, presence or absence of annotations, etc. The animations may be saved as a series of individual frames, animated GIFs, or H.264/MP4 movies. CyAnimator is available from within the Cytoscape App Manager or from the Cytoscape app store.

Keywords

• Bioinformatics
• Theory & Simulation