High-level Static and Dynamic Visualisation of Software Architectures

Developing software architectures for complex software applications is challenging, and requires good static and dynamic visualisation support. We describe the visual software architecture modelling visual language we have developed and its support in the SoftArch environment. Static software architecture views are developed using this language, and designs and implementations developed from these specifications. Static views are copied, animated and annotated to visualise running system architecture characteristics. This approach provides better static modelling and dynamic visualisation of software architectures, at varying levels of abstraction, than do other current techniques.