Visual Debugging of Visualization Software: A Case Study for Particle Systems
Visualization systems are complex dynamic software systems. Debugging such systems is difficult using conventional debuggers because the programmer must try to imagine the three-dimensional geometry based on a list of positions and attributes. In addition, the programmer must be able to mentally animate changes in those positions and attributes to grasp dynamic behaviors within the algorithm. In this paper we shall show that representing geometry, attributes, and relationships graphically permits visual pattern recognition skills to be applied to the debugging problem. The particular application is a particle system used for isosurface extraction from volumetric data. Coloring particles based on individual attributes is especially helpful when these colorings are viewed as animations over successive iterations in the program. Although we describe a particular application, the types of tools that we discuss can be applied to a variety of problems.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 9004
- Report Number(s):
- SAND99-1763C; TRN: AH200122%%124
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: IEEE Visualization 1999, San Francisco, CA (US), 10/24/1999--10/29/1999; Other Information: PBD: 12 Jul 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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