THORR: a focus + context method for visualising large software systems

Many attempts have been made to construct tools that aid a programmers understand- ing of source code and system structure. Syntactic highlighting and tabbed interfaces can only be useful to a degree; greater steps need to be taken to accelerate programmer com- prehension and in reducing programming and maintenance times. This paper presents a new programming environment for software engineers, THORR. The programming envi- ronment hopes to overcome some of the shortcomings currently associated with similar visualisation projects, in terms of balance between level of detail and context, by using 'Degree-of-Interest' information visualisation techniques to implement an attention reac- tive user interface. An overview of the prototype tool and its basic functionality is also given.