Visualising Class Cohesion with Virtual Worlds
Neville Churcher, Warwick Irwin and Ron Kriz
Department of Computer Science
University of Canterbury
Abstract
An understanding of cohesion is an important factor in software design. However, cohesion is difficult to quantify, particularly for OO, and attempts to develop metrics have had limited success. We advocate the use of visualisation techniques to provide a richer view of cohesion than is possible with a single numeric value. In this paper we describe the application of ANGLE for 3D graph layout and the use of XSLT transformations both to select the ingredients for visualisations and to determine their presentation details. We discuss our experiences with the use of virtual worlds as a presentation medium both on the desktop and in immersive environments and report early results from ongoing empirical work.