Elektronik und Informatik
Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Conference Proceeding (25)
- Article (11)
- Part of a Book (2)
Language
- English (37)
- Multiple languages (1)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (38)
Keywords
Institute
DEKXTROSE: An Education 4.0 Mobile Learning Approach and Object-Aware App Based on a Knowledge Nexus
(2020)
The exponential growth in knowledge coupled with the decreasing knowledge half-life creates a challenging situation for educational programs - particularly those preparing software engineers for their very dynamic high-technology field. Teachers in high technology education areas are challenged in selecting and making relevant knowledge intuitively accessible to students, especially with regard the highly dynamic digital and software technologies. This paper contributes a knowledge nexus-based multimedia approach aligned with Higher Education 4.0 for creating learning apps on mobile devices that support multiple didactic models, leverage intrinsic curiosity and motivation, support gamification, and enable digital collaboration. Object recognition is used to trigger learning paths, and various didactic methods are supported via workflow-like learning flows to support group or team-based learning. A prototype app was realized to demonstrate its feasibility and an empirical evaluation in software engineering shows the didactic potential and advantages of the approach, which can be readily generalized and applied to the arts, sciences, etc.
Software models in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) can been created or automatically reverse-engineered and used for quickly gaining structural insights into larger, legacy, or unfamiliar software. But as the size, structural complexity, and interdependencies between software components in larger systems grows, two-dimensional viewing and modeling has limitations, and new ways of visualizing larger models and numerous associated diagrams of different types are needed to intuitively convey structural and relational insights. To investigate the feasibility of using Virtual Reality (VR) to create an immersive UML-based software modeling experience, this paper contributes a VR solution concept for visualizing, navigating, modeling, and interacting with software models using UML notation. An implementation shows its feasibility while an empirical evaluation highlights its potential.
The volume of program source code created, reused, and maintained worldwide is rapidly increasing, yet code comprehension remains a limiting productivity factor. For developers and maintainers, well known common software design patterns and the abstractions they offer can help support program comprehension. However, manual pattern documentation techniques in code and code-related assets such as comments, documents, or models are not necessarily consistent or dependable and are cost-prohibitive. To address this situation, we propose the Hybrid Design Pattern Detection (HyDPD), a generalized approach for detecting patterns that is programming-language-agnostic and combines graph analysis (GA) and Machine Learning (ML) to automate the detection of design patterns via source code analysis. Our realization demonstrates its feasibility. An evaluation compared each technique and their combination for three common patterns across a set of 75 single pattern Java and C# public sample pattern projects. The GA component was also used to detect the 23 Gang of Four design patterns across 258 sample C# and Java projects as well as in a large Java project. Performance and scalability were measured. The results show the advantages and potential of a hybrid approach for combining GA with artificial neural networks (ANN) for automated design pattern detection, providing compensating advantages such as reduced false negatives and improved F1 scores.
With the increasing pressure to deliver additional software functionality, software engineers and developers are often confronted with the dilemma of sufficient software testing. One aspect to avoid is test redundancy, and measuring test (or code or statement) coverage can help focus test development on those areas that are not yet sufficiently tested. As software projects grow, it can be difficult to visualize both the software product and the software testing area and their dependencies. This paper contributes VR-TestCoverage, a Virtual Reality (VR) solution concept for visualizing and interacting with test coverage, test results, and test dependency data in VR. Our VR implementation shows its feasibility. The evaluation results based on a case study show its support for three testing-related scenarios.
The increasing demand for software functionality necessitates an increasing amount of program source code that is retained and managed in version control systems, such as Git. As the number, size, and complexity of Git repositories increases, so does the number of collaborating developers, maintainers, and other stakeholders over a repository’s lifetime. In particular, visual limitations of Git tooling hampers repository comprehension, analysis, and collaboration across one or multiple repositories with a larger stakeholder spectrum. This paper contributes VR-Git, a Virtual Reality (VR) solution concept for visualizing and interacting with Git repositories in VR. Our prototype realization shows its feasibility, and our evaluation results based on a case study show its support for repository comprehension, analysis, and collaboration via branch, commit, and multi-repository scenarios.
Repeatable processes are fundamental for describing how enterprises and organizations operate, for production, for Industry 4.0, etc. As digitalization and automation progresses across all organizations and industries, including enterprises, business, government, manufacturing, and IT, evidence-based comprehension and analysis of the processes involved, including their variations, anomalies, and performance, becomes vital for an increasing set of stakeholders. Process Mining (PM) relies on logs or processes (as such evidence-based) to provide process-centric analysis data, yet insights are not necessarily visually accessible for a larger set of stakeholders (who may not be process or data analysts). Towards addressing certain challenges described in the Process Mining Manifesto, this paper contributes VR-ProcessMine, a solution for visualizing and interacting with PM results in Virtual Reality (VR). Our realization shows its feasibility, and a case-based evaluation provides insights into its capabilities.
As systems grow in complexity, the interdisciplinary nature of systems engineering makes the visualization and comprehension of the underlying system models challenging for the various stakeholders. This, in turn, can affect validation and realization correctness. Furthermore, stakeholder collaboration is often hindered due to the lack of a common medium to access and convey these models, which are often partitioned across multiple 2D diagrams. This paper contributes VR-SysML, a solution concept for visualizing and interacting with SysML models in Virtual Reality (VR). Our prototype realization shows its feasibility, and our evaluation results based on a case study shows its support for the various SysML diagram types in VR, cross-diagram element recognition via our backplane followers concept, and depicting further related (SysML and non-SysML) models side-by-side in VR.
VR-V&V
(2023)
To build quality into a software (SW) system necessitates supporting quality-related lifecycle activities during the software development. In software engineering, software Verification and Validation (V&V) processes constitute an inherent part of Software Quality Assurance (SQA) processes. A subset of the V&V activities involved are: 1) bidirectional traceability analysis of requirements to design model elements, and 2) software testing. Yet the complex nature of large SW systems and the dependencies involved in both design models and testing present a challenge to current V&V tools and methods regarding support for trace analysis. One of software’s essential challenges remains its invisibility, which also affects V&V activities. This paper contributes VR-V&V, a Virtual Reality (VR) solution concept towards supporting immersive V&V activities. By visualizing requirements, models, and testing artifacts with dependencies and trace relations immersively, they are intuitively accessible to a larger stakeholder audience such as SQA personnel while supporting digital cognition. Our prototype realization shows the feasibility of supporting immersive bidirectional traceability as well as immersive software test coverage and analysis. The evaluation results are based on a case study demonstrating its capabilities, in particular traceability support was performed with ReqIF, ArchiMate models, test results, test coverage, and test source to test target dependencies.
VR-SysML+Traceability
(2023)
As systems grow in complexity, the interdisciplinary nature of systems engineering makes the visualization and comprehension of the underlying system models challenging for the various stakeholders. This, in turn, can affect validation and realization correctness. Furthermore, stakeholder collaboration is often hindered due to the lack of a common medium to access and convey these models, which are often partitioned across multiple 2D diagrams. This paper contributes VR-SysML, a solution concept for visualizing and interacting with Systems Modeling Language (SysML) models in Virtual Reality (VR). Our prototype realization shows its feasibility, and our evaluation results based on a case study shows its support for the various SysML diagram types in VR, cross-diagram element recognition via our Backplane Followers concept, and depicting further related (SysML and non-SysML) models side-by-side in VR.
VR-GitCity
(2023)
The increasing demand for software functionality necessitates an increasing amount of program source code that is retained and managed in version control systems, such as Git. As the number, size, and complexity of Git repositories increases, so does the number of collaborating developers, maintainers, and other stakeholders over a repository’s lifetime. In particular, visual limitations of command line or two- dimensional graphical Git tooling can hamper repository comprehension, analysis, and collaboration across one or multiple repositories when a larger stakeholder spectrum is involved. This is especially true for depicting repository evolution over time. This paper contributes VR-GitCity, a Virtual Reality (VR) solution concept for visualizing and interacting with Git repositories in VR. The evolution of the code base is depicted via a 3D treemap utilizing a city metaphor, while the commit history is visualized as vertical planes. Our prototype realization shows its feasibility, and our evaluation results based on a case study show its depiction, comprehension, analysis, and collaboration capabilities for evolution, branch, commit, and multi-repository analysis scenarios.
VR-EDStream+EDA
(2023)
With increasing digitalization, the importance of data and events, which comprise its most fundamental level, cannot be overemphasized. All types of organizations, including enterprises, business, government, manufacturing, and the supporting IT, are dependent on these fundamental building blocks. Thus, evidence-based comprehension and analysis of the underlying data and events, their stream processing, and correlation with enterprise events and activities becomes vital for an increasing set of (grassroot or citizen) stakeholders. Thus, further investigation of accessible alternatives to visually support analysis of data and events is needed. This paper contributes VR-EDStream+EDA, a solution for immersively visualizing and interacting with data and event streams or pipelines and generically visualizing Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) in Virtual Reality (VR). Our realization shows its feasibility, and a case-based evaluation provides insights into its capabilities.
Automated Software Engineering Process Assessment: Supporting Diverse Models using an Ontology
(2013)
Leveraging Augmented Reality to Support Context-Aware Tasks in Alignment with Business Processes
(2021)
The seamless inclusion of Augmented Reality (AR) with Business Process Management Systems (BPMSs) for Smart Factory and Industry 4.0 processes remains a challenge. Towards this end, this paper contributes an approach integrating context-aware AR into intelligent business processes to support and guide manufacturing personnel tasks and enable live task assignment optimization and support task execution quality. Our realization extends two BPMSs (Camunda and AristaFlow) and various AR devices. Various AR capabilities are demonstrated via a simulated industrial case study.