Software visualization in the large

Author

Ball, Thomas ; Eick, Stephen G.

Author_Institution

Bell Labs., Naperville, IL, USA

Volume

29

Issue

4

fYear

1996

fDate

4/1/1996 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

33

Lastpage

43

Abstract

The invisible nature of software hides system complexity, particularly for large team-oriented projects. The authors have evolved four innovative visual representations of code to help solve this problem: line representation; pixel representation; file summary representation; and hierarchical representation. We first describe these four visual code representations and then discuss the interaction techniques for manipulating them. We illustrate our software visualization techniques through five case studies. The first three focus on software history and static software characteristics; the last two discuss execution behavior. The software library and its implementation are then described. Finally, we briefly review some related work and compare and contrast our different techniques for visualizing software

Keywords

data visualisation; software engineering; visual programming; case studies; execution behavior; file summary representation; hierarchical representation; interaction techniques; large team-oriented projects; line representation; pixel representation; software history; software library; software visualization; static software characteristics; system complexity; visual code representations; Computer aided software engineering; Computer displays; Productivity; Programming profession; Runtime; Shape; Software engineering; Software systems; Software tools; Visualization;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computer

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9162

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/2.488299

Filename

488299