Graph Representations

In graph theory, a graph representation is a technique to store graph into

the memory of computer.

To represent a graph, we just need the set of vertices, and for each vertex
the neighbors of the vertex (vertices which is directly connected to it by an
edge). If it is a weighted graph, then the weight will be associated with each
edge.

There are different ways to optimally represent a graph, depending on the

density of its edges, type of operations to be performed and ease of use.

1. Adjacency Matrix

An adjacency matrix is a square matrix of N x N size where N is the

number of nodes in the graph and it is used to represent the connections
between the edges of a graph.

The adjacency matrix, also called the connection matrix, is a matrix

containing rows and columns which is used to represent a simple
labelled graph, with 0 or 1 in the position of (Vi , Vj) according to the
condition whether Vi and Vj are adjacent or not. It is a compact way to
represent the finite graph containing n vertices of a m x m matrix M.
Sometimes adjacency matrix is also called as vertex.
 If the simple graph has no self-loops, Then the vertex matrix should
have 0s in the diagonal. It is symmetric for the undirected graph. The
connection matrix is considered as a square array where each row
represents the out-nodes of a graph and each column represents the
in-nodes of a graph. Entry 1 represents that there is an edge between
two nodes.

An adjacency matrix is a way of representing a graph as a matrix of

boolean (0’s and 1’s).
Let’s assume there are n vertices in the graph So, create a 2D
matrix adjMat[n][n] having dimension n x n.

 If there is an edge from vertex i to j, mark adjMat[i][j] as 1.

 If there is no edge from vertex i to j, mark adjMat[i][j] as 0.

 Adjacency matrix is a sequential representation.

 It is used to represent which nodes are adjacent to each other. i.e.
is there any edge connecting nodes to a graph.

Advantages of using Adjacency Matrix:

 An adjacency matrix is simple and easy to understand.
 Adding or removing edges from a graph is quick and easy.
 It allows constant time access to any edge in the graph.
 Undirected graph representation

 Directed graph represenation

In the above examples, 1 represents an edge from row vertex to

column vertex, and 0 represents no edge from row vertex to
column vertex.
 Undirected weighted graph represenation

 Self loop :
 Characteristics of the adjacency matrix are:
 The size of the matrix is determined by the number of vertices in the
graph.
 The number of nodes in the graph determines the size of the matrix.
 The number of edges in the graph is simply calculated.
 If the graph has few edges, the matrix will be sparse.

Applications of the Adjacency Matrix:

i. Graph algorithms: Many graph algorithms like Dijkstra’s

algorithm, Floyd-Warshall algorithm, and Kruskal’s algorithm use
adjacency matrices to represent graphs.
ii. Image processing: Adjacency matrices are used in image processing
to represent the adjacency relationship between pixels in an image.
iii. Finding the shortest path between two nodes: By performing
matrix multiplication on the adjacency matrix, one can find the
shortest path between any two nodes in a graph.