Experience with FADE for the visualization and abstraction of software views

This paper describes the FADE paradigm for visualization and a series of experiments for the fast layout, abstract representation, and measurement of software views. In program comprehension, graph models are typically used to represent relational information, where the visualization of such graphs is referred to as graph drawing. Here we present the results of an investigation into efficient techniques for drawing and abstractly representing large software views with thousands of nodes from four medium sized software systems. The paradigm presented in this paper marries a solution to problems of computation time, screen space, cognitive load, and rendering for large-scale drawings using a single graph model.