NVIS: an interactive visualization tool for neural networks

This paper presents NVIS, an interactive graphical tool used to examine the weights, topology, and activations of a single artificial neural network (ANN), as well as the genealogical relationships between members of a population of ANNs as they evolve under an evolutionary algorithm. NVIS is unique in its depiction of nodal activation values, its usage of family tree diagrams to indicate the origin of individual networks, and the degree of interactivity it allows the user while the learning process takes place. The authors have made use of these features to obtain insights into both the workings of single neural networks and the evolutionary process, based upon which we consider NVIS to be an effective visualization tool of value to designers, users, and students of ANNs.