Graphical Trace Object (GTO) Tool

Development and maintenance of large software systems is a daunting task. A number of tools for simplifying the development process have been designed over the years. These include source-code browsers, debuggers, and profilers. However, despite all of these tools, software has become increasingly complex and bloated, and often exhibits poor performance despite exponential increases in processor speed. We believe that this is due to developers lacking a deep understanding of how their software operates, and that tools that are able to visualize complex software operations will help them gain key insights. We propose to explore the range of techniques that are necessary for building a tool for run-time visualization of objects and object interactions in C++ programs and to investigate the practical feasibility of these techniques. The research will span multiple areas of computer science touching on data visualization, user interfaces, run-time program monitoring, and static analysis. If the option is exercised, we propose to develop early prototypes for the techniques that show the best promise.