Enhancing structural views of software systems by dynamic information

Abstract

Understanding software systems comprises the analysis of different aspects of the respective systems, such as dynamic and static analysis with all their facets. Consequently, developers study different kinds of information and create different mental models. We introduce a visualization technique that facilitates cross referencing mental models, in particular models that describe the structure and models describing the behavior of software systems. To achieve this goal, we enhance structural views by runtime information depending on the current focus of a sequential view. Animation enables developers to explore how the system's state changes over time, by this, supporting developers in understanding program behavior.