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Visualising Software in a Virtual Reality Environment (VVSRE)
-------------------------------------------------------------
This research addresses the problems of visualising large complex software
systems. The approach to be taken is that of three-dimensional (virtual
reality) interactive visualisations. The main aims are to reduce
complexity,
aid understanding and to be capable of dealing with different levels of
abstraction. Abstraction levels are important to support the different
cognitive aspects of the program comprehension process, and to allow the
extensibility of the visualisations to large systems.
Background
----------
Program comprehension is an important and major part of the maintenance and
evolution of software. Software does have to evolve over time to remain
useful, and this evolution requires change. In order to make changes the
structure and functionality of the system has to be understood. One way to
facilitate this understanding is through visualisation. For many years
basic
visualisation, based around simple boxes and lines, has been done in an
attempt to ease some of the cognitive overload caused by program
comprehension. The problems with such visualisations is that they can very
easily become incomprehensible themselves by trying to force large amounts
of information into a small space, relying solely on two dimensions for the
representations and because generally the information is presented in a
static
way.
An important aid to the problems of program comprehension has been the use
of
static analysis tools to provide useful and up to date information on the
software. Through the use of different views such as call graphs, control
flow graphs, data flow information, program slices and cross references, a
software engineer can gain a much clearer understanding of the software.
For
many years the focus of this software visualisation has been two-dimensional
images. However these images quickly become too complex to be of any use as
the size of the software increases.
Proposed Research
-----------------
The proposed research is to define metaphors for software systems that can
form a software landscape that can then be incorporated into a virtual
reality
environment. This will then allow the software engineer to browse and
navigate through the landscape to help him form the mental models necessary
to
achieve levels of understanding.
The mental models proposed by various researchers in the field of program
comprehension have a commonality in that they are composed from semantic
constructs. These constructs are typically abstractions, at various levels,
of program features. The network formed from these constructs constitutes
the
software engineer's understanding and mental representation of the software.
Understanding is then enhanced using different levels of abstraction, which
involves switching between the integrated meta-model, top-down and bottom-up
comprehension processes.
Virtual Reality enables the visualisations to be more dynamic, interactive
and possibly immersive. These concepts have been successfully exploited in
information visualisation where, for example, full text retrieval from a
database has been implemented. Software visualisation requires some form
of virtual reality environment to support the visualisations. The creation
of such a virtual reality engine is a complex task and it is not the
intention
of this project to develop one. Therefore an existing virtual reality
engine
such as Maverik can be utilised.
Objectives
----------
The primary objectives of this project are:
1. To move away from the traditional nodes and arcs (lines and boxes)
approach
to visualisation with all their inherent problems;
2. To define new abstractions for the visualisation of large software
systems;
3. To develop metaphors to exploit these new abstractions;
4. To implement the abstractions and metaphors by addressing detailed
representational issues;
5. To investigate the applicability of the new visualisations to the
understandability, maintainability and evolution of software.
Each of these objectives will lead to a new way to visualise software
systems
and to a better understanding of the visualisations.
Salary
------
The appointment will be made at the Research Associate level with a starting
salary of £17570.
For more information please contact Prof. Malcolm Munro:
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)191 374 2634
Fax: +44 (0)191 374 2560
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