Visualization of Concurrent Computations: Doctor of Science Dissertation Proposal

Visualization, defined as the graphical representation of symbolic objects and processes, is recognized as an important tool to aid human understanding. This is particularly true in the area of program visualization, which uses images to illustrate the execution of programs. This proposal describes research to investigate the visualization of concurrent computations. The research has two major goals: the development of a model of visualization suitable for concurrent computations, and the development of methodology for constructing visualizations. The proposed visualization model treats visualization as a function from the state of the computation to an image. This differs significantly from the approach used by existing (single-process) visualization systems, but seems highly suitable for concurrent computations. The proposed methodology uses the concepts of program correctness to identify the key properties of a computation and suggest methods of visualizing these properties