Why not just create a GraphML, GDF or GEXF file and load it into Gephi[1]?

Seems way simpler and that program has all kinds of algorithms that lets you visualize graphs. If you want to show the graph to someone else, stream it or make a webm.

I guess the only limitation is it would be tough to do it on live data.

[1] https://gephi.org/

You could do interactive view options / drill down with this that needs on the fly reanalysis of the traffic. Doing it all beforehand and generating all possible graph data "just in case" gets too expensive fast.

A simple example would be showing desired protocol level details via the Wireshark XML output stuff.

You can do all those things in Gephi. Just give each node/edge those attributes and you can filter/query by them.

You can very much show desired protocol level details - just convert Wireshark XML to one of the common graph formats and load that.

So how to address the graph size problem?

Nice tool, it reminds me of http://etherape.sourceforge.net/

Very nice. Jung has some pretty good java vis libs.

i remember making this kind of tool for a major telecommunications firm. it was a good project for me as a junior.

Got as far as requires Java... It's sad but running Java ducks, every time I need to use idrac to a Dell server it really is a nightmare...

It's Java's fault Dell wrote a crappy program in it?

Maybe, but then one can only really use compiled languages ... or isn't it a similar effort with JavaScript/Node.js, Python or PHP?