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Visualization of Source Code Similarity Using 2.5D Semantic Software Maps

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Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2021)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1691))

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Abstract

For various program comprehension tasks, software visualization techniques can be beneficial by displaying aspects related to the behavior, structure, or evolution of software. In many cases, the question is related to the semantics of the source code files, e.g., the localization of files that implement specific features or the detection of files with similar semantics. This work presents a general software visualization technique for source code documents, which uses 3D glyphs placed on a two-dimensional reference plane. The relative positions of the glyphs captures their semantic relatedness. Our layout originates from applying Latent Dirichlet Allocation and Multidimensional Scaling on the comments and identifier names found in the source code files. Though different variants for 3D glyphs can be applied, we focus on cylinders, trees, and avatars. We discuss various mappings of data associated with source code documents to the visual variables of 3D glyphs for selected use cases and provide details on our visualization system.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Source code taken from https://github.com/cginternals/globjects.

  2. 2.

    Source code taken from https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus.

  3. 3.

    Source code taken from github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.

  4. 4.

    https://www.nltk.org/.

  5. 5.

    https://spacy.io/.

  6. 6.

    https://radimrehurek.com/gensim/.

  7. 7.

    https://scikit-learn.org/stable/.

  8. 8.

    https://webgl-operate.org/.

  9. 9.

    https://sketchfab.com/feed.

  10. 10.

    https://www.blender.org/.

  11. 11.

    Source code taken from https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of the “Software-DNA” project, which is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF or EFRE in German) and the State of Brandenburg (ILB). This work is part of the KMU project “KnowhowAnalyzer” (Förderkennzeichen 01IS20088B), which is funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung). We further thank the students Maximilian Söchting and Merlin de la Haye for their work during their master’s project at the Hasso Plattner Institute during the summer term 2020.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hasso Plattner Institute, Digital Engineering Faculty, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Daniel Atzberger, Tim Cech, Willy Scheibel, Daniel Limberger & Jürgen Döllner

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  1. Daniel Atzberger
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  2. Tim Cech
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  3. Willy Scheibel
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  4. Daniel Limberger
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Correspondence to Daniel Atzberger .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    A. Augusto de Sousa

  2. Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

    Vlastimil Havran

  3. Mines ParisTech, Paris, France

    Alexis Paljic

  4. Davidson College, Davidson, NC, USA

    Tabitha Peck

  5. French Civil Aviation University (ENAC), Toulouse, France

    Christophe Hurter

  6. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Helen Purchase

  7. University of Catania, Catania, Italy

    Giovanni Maria Farinella

  8. University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Petia Radeva

  9. IRISA, University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France

    Kadi Bouatouch

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Atzberger, D., Cech, T., Scheibel, W., Limberger, D., Döllner, J. (2023). Visualization of Source Code Similarity Using 2.5D Semantic Software Maps. In: de Sousa, A.A., et al. Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications. VISIGRAPP 2021. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1691. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25477-2_8

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