Structural analog

Structural analogs (structural analogue or simply analog) are models or representations that bear a "structural similarity" to one another. They are used in engineering, chemistry, mathematics and other fields.

Despite the field diversity, all structural analog analysis use some level of abstraction to transform models in mathematical graphs, and detected structural analogies by algorithms. Example: for molecular structure comparison and classification operations, the compared compounds are modeled as a mathematical graph. Formally, when structures are represented by graphs, the concept of analog is related to a graph isomorphism.