AniMatrix: A Matrix-Based Visualization of Software Evolution

Software designs are ever changing to adapt to new environments and requirements. Tracking and understanding changes in modules and relationships in a software project is difficult, but even more so when the software goes through several types of changes. The typical complexity and size of software also makes it harder to grasp software evolution patterns. In this paper, we present an interactive matrix-based visualization technique that, combined with animation, depicts how software designs evolve. For example, it shows which new modules and couplings are added and removed over time. Our generic visualization supports dynamic and weighted digraphs and is applied in the context of software evolution. Analyzing source code changes is important to determine the software's structural organization and identify quality issues over time. To demonstrate our approach, we explore open-source repositories and discuss some of our findings regarding these evolving software designs.