Visualizing Modules and Dependencies of OSGi-Based Applications

The architecture of software it not tangible, but in different situations it is preferable to have it tangible. For example, while reviewing it against the intended design, introducing the software to others, or starting to develop on a new part. Basic aspects of a software architecture are the modules the software is constructed of and the dependencies between them. To comprehend these aspects is important especially for software using a technology such as OSGi, which key concept is modularization. In this paper, we describe interactive visualization tools that we developed to comprehend large OSGi-based applications with their modules and dependencies. We applied our solution for OSGi-based applications with hundreds of modules containing multiple submodules each. With the resulting visualizations, we can explore the modularization of the software architecture.