THE ROLE OF ANOTHER SPATIAL DIMENSION IN SOFTWARE VISUALIZATION

The primary objective of this article is to demonstrate the use of 3D-computer graphics in visualizing shapeless software information by focusing on performance monitoring of parallel/concurrent computer systems. Issues are addressed from two different perspectives: expressiveness of output media and user cognition. The former describes the limitations of 2D output media. The latter refers to a user's cognitive load when using 2D representations in a multiple-window environment. We show how these problems can be minimized by using a 3D framework. A prototype visualization system called VOGUE has been developed. A 3D framework is used to visualize the execution pattern of two parallel/concurrent computer systems: an electric power control system and a parallel manipulator system. Through these visualizations, we show the effectiveness of our framework. The applications of 3D frameworks to other kinds of software information are also described.