Software Landscapes: Visualizing the Structure of Large Software Systems

Abstract

Modern object-oriented programs are hierarchical systems with many thousands of interrelated subsystems. Visualization helps developers to better comprehend these large and complex systems. This paper presents a three-dimensional visualization technique that represents the static structure of object-oriented programs using landscape-like distributions of three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional plane. The familiar landscape methaphor facilitates intuitive navigation and comprehension. The visual complexity is reduced by adjusting the transparency of object surfaces to the distance of the viewpoint. An approach called Hierarchical Net is proposed for a clear representation of the relationsships between the subsystems.