VATPA: a simulation environment for message-passing concurrent systems

The authors present an animation tool for visualizing the complex, dynamic behavior of parallel algorithms. The key idea behind this tool design is to abstract run-time activities and turn them into graphical representations that move and vary in location, size, and color. With proper abstractions, it establishes a technical foundation for monitoring, analyzing, and improving complex parallel algorithms. It represents animated views in an informative and coherent manner. There are two unique attributes that distinguish the animation tool from others: (1) it provides a general simulation environment for analyzing parallel algorithms with arbitrary program structures and sizes; and (2) it allows the visualization for computation status of parallel processes and their run-time interactions