Using these principles, they have developed systems for visualizing software, bibliographic databases, log files, relationship databases, and networks, among others. They are able rapidly to construct informative, pleasing and novel visualizations of abstract databases. For example, red rows may be the newest lines and blue the oldest lines, with a range of colors in between. The displayed data are derived from a variety of sources, such as version control systems, static analysis, and profiling. With direct manipulation and high interaction graphics, the user manipulates this reduced representation of the code to find interesting patterns.
Further insight is obtained by using additional windows to display the actual code.
Applications include code discovery, code tuning, re-engineering, project management, and analysis of development methodologies. Datasets for which visualizations have been done include international-calling toll fraud, communities of interest in a local telephone exchange, and affinity purchasing relationships for retail sales. It uses the underlying geography to position nodes and provides techniques to allow the user to filter the data to make patterns visible. Data may also be animated to show events in time. All rights reserved.