Algorithms, Vol. 13, Pages 19: Computing Persistent Homology of Directed Flag Complexes (Algorithms)

We present a new computing package FLAGSERmathsizesmall, designed to construct the directed flag complex of a finite directed graph, and compute persistent homology for flexibly defined filtrations on the graph and the resulting complex. The persistent homology computation part of FLAGSERmathsizesmall is based on the program RIPSERmathsizesmall by U. Bauer, but is optimised specifically for large computations. The construction of the directed flag complex is done in a way that allows easy parallelisation by arbitrarily many cores. FLAGSERmathsizesmall also has the option of working with undirected graphs. For homology computations FLAGSERmathsizesmall has an approximate option, which shortens compute time with remarkable accuracy. We demonstrate the power of FLAGSERmathsizesmall by applying it to the construction of the directed flag complex of digital reconstructions of brain microcircuitry by the Blue Brain Project and several other examples. In some instances we perform computation of homology. For a more complete performance analysis, we also apply FLAGSERmathsizesmall to some other data collections. In all cases the hardware used in the computation, the use of memory and the compute time are recorded.