Perspectives on Software Visualization

Fabian BeckVISUS, University of Stuttgart

@beck_fabian

no natural representation beyond source code

visualization makes software explorable

Software

2

…

Example: Software Feathers

find a characteristic, recognizable representation of a class

3

JHotDraw 7.6Java GUI framework

578 classes and interfaces

Software Feathers [IVAPP 14]

Perspectives on Software

an autobiographic view of software visualization

4

developer

manager

researcher

user

architect

A Bird's-Eye Perspective5

A View from Top

6

manager

researcher

architectcomplete system

Software as Graphs and Hierarchies

7

A

B C

couplings

modularization

A B C

b

a

time

A B C

a

Dynamic Graphs

2.0

2.1

3.0

3.2

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.8

.1

3.8

.2

4.0

4.1

4.2

4.3

.1

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.7

4.8

4.8

.1

Parallel Edge Splatting [TVCG 11, VL/HCC 12, IVAPP 12]

8

software evolution

dynamic call graphs

The State of the Art in Visualizing Dynamic Graphs [EuroVis 14]

http://dynamicgraphs.fbeck.com

Comparison of Concepts of Couplings

Visually Exploring Multi-Dimensional Code Couplings [VISSOFT 11] 9

Couplings and Modularizations

Visual Comparison of Software Architectures[SoftVis 10, Information Visualization 13] 10

BA C

A

B

C

type I

type I & II

type II

A

B C

node-link

matrix

Characteristics of the Perspective

11

goal: high-level insights

means: overview and abstraction

challenge: visual scalability

application: limited reach and application

A Frog‘s-Eye Perspective

12

Worm

A Change of Perspective13

developer

…

part of the system

user

In Situ Software Visualization

visualize information in-place, when and where needed

14

developers’ reality: source code

“A sparkline is a small intense, simple, word-sized graphic with typographic resolution.”

Edward Tufte, 2006

[Google image search for “sparklines”]

Monitoring of Numeric Variables

15

0

15min value

max value

variable value

# read accesses

logical time

write access read access

Visual Monitoring of Numeric Variables Embedded in Source Code [VISSOFT 13]

Runtime Consumption

16

In Situ Understanding of Performance Bottlenecks through Visually Augmented Code [ICPC 13]

0.53%a(){method time calleescallers

self time threadscolor: thread type

I3 Feature Location

17Rethinking User Interfaces for Feature Location [submitted]

searchsimilarity

change history of the method

daysweeksmonthsyears

I

RegViz [ICSE NIER 14]

\(([^)]*?(\w*))\)|\[([^\]]*?(\w*))\]

http://regviz.org

RegViz

Characteristics of the Perspective19

goal: developer experience

means: selection and details

challenge: seamless integration

application: wide reach and application

Perspective – What‘s next?

20

Interplay of Perspectives

21

dynamic perspectives

collaboration communication

From Analyzing to Editing

22

Get Your Directories Right: From Hierarchy Visualization to Hierarchy Manipulation [VL/HCC 14]

comparison of directory hierarchies/software modularizations

anal

yze

edit

Context Switch

perspectives on software visualization

end-user vs. expert visualization

visualization as a part of something bigger

23

Conclusions

24

Perspectives on Software Visualization

25

Bird‘s-Eye Perspective high-level insights overview and abstraction visual scalability limited reach

Frog‘s-Eye Perspective developer experience selection and details seamless integration wide reach

Perspective interplay of perspectives from analyzing to editing context switch

Fabian Beck @beck_fabian

References Beck, Fabian: Software Feathers: Figurative Visualization of Software Metrics. In: IVAPP '14: Proceedings of the 5th

International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Application, S. 5-16, 2014.

Burch, Michael; Vehlow, Corinna; Beck, Fabian; Diehl, Stephan; Weiskopf, Daniel: Parallel Edge Splatting for Scalable Dynamic Graph Visualization. In: IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics: Nr. 12 (2011), S. 2344-2353.

Burch, Michael; Beck, Fabian; Weiskopf, Daniel: Radial Edge Splatting for Visualizing Dynamic Directed Graphs. In: IVAPP '12: Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications, S. 603-612, 2012.

Beck, Fabian; Burch, Michael; Vehlow, Corinna; Diehl, Stephan; Weiskopf, Daniel: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation in Dynamic Graph Visualization. In: IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2012), S. 185-192, 2012.

Beck, Fabian; Burch, Michael; Diehl, Stephan; Weiskopf, Daniel: The State of the Art in Visualizing Dynamic Graphs. In: EuroVis - STARs, S. 83-103, 2014.

Beck, Fabian; Petkov, Radoslav; Diehl, Stephan: Visually Exploring Multi-Dimensional Code Couplings. In: VISSOFT '11: Proceedings of the 6th IEEE International Workshop on Visualizing Software for Understanding and Analysis, S. 1-8, 2011.

Beck, Fabian; Diehl, Stephan: Visual Comparison of Software Architectures. In: SoftVis '10: Proceedings of the ACM 2010 Symposium on Software Visualization, S. 183-192, 2010.

Beck, Fabian; Diehl, Stephan: Visual Comparison of Software Architectures. In: Information Visualization: Nr. 2 (2013), S. 178-199.

Beck, Fabian; Hollerich, Fabrice; Diehl, Stephan; Weiskopf, Daniel: Visual Monitoring of Numeric Variables Embedded in Source Code. In: VISSOFT '13: Proceedings of the first IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization (2013), S. 1-4.

Beck, Fabian; Moseler, Oliver; Diehl, Stephan; Rey, Günter D.: In Situ Understanding of Performance Bottlenecks through Visually Augmented Code. In: ICPC '13: Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Program Comprehension, S. 63-72, 2013.

Beck, Fabian; Gulan, Stefan; Biegel, Benjamin; Baltes, Sebastian; Weiskopf, Daniel: RegViz: Visual Debugging of Regular Expressions. In: ICSE Companion '14: Companion Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering, S. 504-507, 2014.

Lutz, Rainer; Rausch, Daniel; Beck, Fabian; Diehl, Stephan: Get Your Directories Right: From Hierarchy Visualization toHierarchy Manipulation. To appear in VL/HCC 14

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