Writing Virtual Environments for Software Visualization

Book excerpt: Writing Virtual Environments for Software Visualization book describes the software for a networked, 3D multi-user virtual environment that allows users to create and share remotely visualizations of program behavior. Collaborative virtual environments such as World of Warcraft or Second Life are a popular way to share interactive internet experiences, but they are complex and difficult to create. Software visualization is an area that may enable important advances in our ability to understand and reduce the costs of maintaining software. Applying the former technology to this problem area will be valuable to distributed and multi-institutional software development and educational users. The author covers the major features of collaborative virtual environments and how to program them in a very high level language. The book also examines the application of popular game-like software technologies.