Rapid visual design with semantics encoding through 3d CRC cards

  • Authors:
  • Anthony Savidis;Panagiotis Papadakos;George Zargianakis

  • Affiliations:
  • Institute of Computer Science, FORTH, Greece and University of Crete, Greece;University of Crete, Greece;University of Crete, Greece

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 4th ACM symposium on Software visualization
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

Physical CRC cards (Classes -- Responsibilities - Collaborators) is a well-known method for rapid software-design prototyping. It is commonly applied with numeric heuristics to encode design semantics and denote architectural relationships through card coloring, size variations and spatial grouping. Existing CRC design tools are weak in terms of interactivity and visualization, focusing mainly on form-based specification and documentation. We present Flying Circus, a tool for rapid and exploratory software-design prototyping via CRC cards, offering facilities such as: interactive 3d visualizations with zooming, panning and rotational design inspection, 3d card manipulators, and immersive navigation via stereoscopic views. Our tool is accompanied with specific encoding strategies to represent design semantics and exploit spatial memory and visual pattern matching, while emphasizing highly interactive software-design visualizations.