Software Landscapes: Visualizing the Structure of Large Software Systems

Michael Balzer, Oliver Deussen
Department of Computer and Information Science, 
University of Konstanz, Germany

Andreas Noack, Claus Lewerentz
Software Systems Engineering Research Group, 
Technical University Cottbus, Germany

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
metaphor 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 relationships between the subsystems.

Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS):
D.2.7 [Software Engineering]: Distribution, Maintenance, and Enhancement; I.3.8 [Computer Graphics]: Applications