A visual query language for software visualization

Visualization for software understanding requires that the user be able to define specific visualizations that are specialized to the particular understanding task at hand. In this paper we describe a system that lets the user define such visualizations quickly and effectively. The system uses a visual query language over a variety of data sources to let the user specify what information is relevant to the understanding task and to correlate that information. Then it provides a mechanism for letting the user select and customize an appropriate visualization for this data.