隨著軟體日漸龐大與複雜，軟體除錯也日趨困難。為了讓使用者能更有效的對軟體建構與除錯，視覺化的整合式開發環境成為一個軟體視覺化領域中的新寵。數年來許許多多的研究者嘗試著做出各式各樣的軟體視覺化，卻往往只侷限在特定的程式，而幾乎不曾普及過。
主要原因在於過去都只能針對特定的程式或是資料結構，而無法對任意的軟體去做有效的視覺化。此外，整個視覺化最重要的部分是在視覺化呈現的構想，可惜的是有構想創意的人不見得有能力從頭到尾製作出一套視覺化軟體；即使有能力，只為了實踐一個構想就必須耗費大量資源實做出一套軟體也是相當得不償失。為了解決這樣的問題，我們提出一種可組合性(compositionality)的概念。也就是把視覺化呈現的部分設計成由可替換、可組合式的basic build block建構出更複雜的視覺化。這樣不但可以根據情形更換最佳的視覺化呈現，視覺化的設計也能交由第三方輕易去製作。而當視覺化的設計到達一定數量(critical mess)之後，再經過各種組合替換，將足以應付大部分的軟體視覺化。
為了達成這個目標，我們設計了一套3D視覺化除錯系統DIVA (Debugging Information Visualization Assistant)，把視覺化平台和視覺化設計切開。當一個軟體視覺化設計者有任何良好的構想，不需要再從頭規劃一個龐大的系統，只需要專注於製作新的視覺化呈現。

With the growing of software scale and complexity, software debugging can be a real challenge。In order to making software development more efficiently, IDE is heading towards to software visualization field. Many researchers have tried to create usable software visualization tools but largely in vain. Most of them are limited in certain cases and never widely adopted.
There are several reasons for the low adoption. The key reason, from our perspective, is the limited visualization browser (or visualization metaphor) provided by the tools. Many visualization tools can only display and render limited type of objects, including programs, data structures, and etc.
To address this awkward situation, in this thesis we advocate a “compositionality“ principle. This means all visualization metaphors can be combined and assembled into a more complicated visualization metaphor, like basic build blocks. and design of visualization metaphor can be implemented by third parties. In this way, it is possible to create a best visualization metaphor to meet user’s need. After the amount of visualization metaphors exceeds a critical mess, tool usability can be greatly improved.
To achieve this ambition, in this paper we designed a 3D visualization debugger system, DIVA (Debugging Information Visualization Assistant), which divide visualization tool and visualization metaphor into two parts. A new object-oriented framework is designed and implemented to achieve this goal. Based on this object-oriented design, visualization metaphor programming can be relieved from the details of visualization systems.

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