Tutorial visualization software for concept reinforcement in digital signal processing education

Tutorial visualization for use in digital signal processing education has been developed which fills a niche not covered by software developed for design and productivity tools, toolboxes, application libraries, or student drill and evaluation. This experimental tutorial structure makes use of widely available workstations with high resolution raster displays and user friendly graphical interfaces to provide dynamic examples and illustrations of basic concepts and relationships. Material is presented in a manner complementary to the verbal descriptions found in textbooks. A wider selection of illustrations that can reasonably be included in a textbook can be offered, and more complex displays with combinations of several perspectives can reinforce the connections between topics which may not be introduced at the same time during a course. No programming in any language or command line syntax is required, and students can easily learn to use the mouse-driven software in a few minutes. A pilot version of this system has been tested in an undergraduate digital signal processing course and a more fully developed version is currently being evaluated