Yesterday, I visited an interesting presentation from Tudor Girba. He showed us several ways for visualize code. One of the most interesting visualization was Code City.

 

(ArgoUML from http://moose.unibe.ch/tools/codecity)

 

I couldn’t wait to visualize our current software project. First of all, you have to create a MSE file of your code. The MSE file as a generic file of your source code. This is done with iPlasma, as described here http://moose.unibe.ch/news/iplasma-to-moose-screencast.

 

After you have created an MSE file, you can now visualize your code with Code City. Just download it from http://www.inf.unisi.ch/phd/wettel/codecity.html, run it, import the MSE file and create your city. Enjoy!

 

For better code analysis, I changed the configuration of the “buildings” in my city. I changed the width and length of class element …

… to a linear mapper based on the lines of code.

 

Code City is very helpful to compare different parts of the application and to just visualize the software!

 

 

 

 

1. I am glad you liked it. I am sure Richard Wettel, the author of CodeCity, would be pleased to know that, too

   Comment by Tudor Girba — 12.3.2009 @ 22:48

2. ” … For better code analysis, I changed the configuration of the “buildings” in my city. I changed the width and length of class element …”
   IMHO _better_ is relative: I would suggest the following: In our project metric X is more suitable than metric Y …
   Reason: A metric X is not better then metric Y. It may be that you are not interested in X, or X has no meaning for you in the current situation.

   Comment by Frank Buchli — 13.3.2009 @ 09:08

3. Frank, that’s right. I just wanted to express that there is the possiblity to change the parameters of the building. And that you should know, what you’re painting

   Comment by Stefan Jäger — 13.3.2009 @ 10:39

4. Hi, guys. I’m a Java programmer. Really the code city is a very helpful tool for code analysis. I’m interested in to generate this kind visualization of using a java application. Do you know some library to generate this visualization using Java?

   Comment by Levy Costa — 10.3.2011 @ 19:53

5. Hi Levy, unfortunately not. Code City is developed in SmallTalk (as far as i know) and only works with the metafile format MSE (http://www.moosetechnology.org/docs/mse). So, there is no Java program for that.

   Comment by Stefan Jäger — 11.3.2011 @ 12:31

6. Thanks, I’ll do some research, if i find something you notice.Did you know this tool http://www.softwarediagnostics.com/solutions/server/? It’s use the same kind of visualization of Code City, but i didn’t see any reference to code city.

   Comment by Levy Costa — 17.3.2011 @ 21:27

7. Nice link, never heard about it. Thanks.

   Comment by Stefan Jäger — 18.3.2011 @ 19:07

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