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Towards Visualization Support for the Eclipse Modeling Framework. Ian Bull, PhD Student University of Victoria the CHISEL group. Motivation. In the Spring of 2003 we conducted a series of user studies with IBM.
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Towards Visualization Support for the Eclipse Modeling Framework Ian Bull, PhD Student University of Victoria the CHISEL group
Motivation • In the Spring of 2003 we conducted a series of user studies with IBM. • User studies investigated the effectiveness of Zoomable User Interfaces for Business Flow Modeling [RLS+03]
Motivation • The experiment took place in Toronto Ontario, while tool development and customization took place in Victoria BC • Results of the study were inconclusive • The experiment itself illustrated the need for view customization
The need for customization support • Initial feedback suggested that additional customization was required • Some view properties were deemed unnecessary • Other derived information was required • Each customization request took several days to complete
Achieving customization • Most of the changes where not conceptually difficult • Each change required a solid understanding of the underlying data model • As experimenters we wanted to be able to make modifications “in-house”
Overview • How is customization achieved • Proposed Work • Methodology • Evaluation Techniques • Risks • Contributions and Conclusion
How is View Customization Achieved? • Developing code from basic building blocks, frameworks or Specialized Visualization tools.
Use Visualization Tools • SHriMP [BMS02] and Snap Together Visualization [NS00] parse common data formats • These tools provide parameterization and style support • Limited customization of interaction techniques is also supported
Data Customization • GSee [Fav01], Bloom [Rei01] and the work by Consens et. al.[CMR92] provide a language for describing views
Related work • Existing visualization tools such as Shrimp [BSM02], Snap Together [NS00] and GSee [Fav01] do not offer the level of customization needed • Graphical query languages [CMR92] used to support view creation was not adopted by industry
Modeling Software • Industry is looking to Model Driven Development • MDD requires the designer to first model the underlying data structures (EMF) • We are studying how visualizations can be modeled in the same way, and will this help?
Model Driven Visualization • Modeling view properties such as colour, icons, line width etc… is only the tip of the iceberg • View modeling requires: • Filtering of unnecessary entities • Facility to derive abstract information • Transformation from one model to another
What we need • A graphical modeling language intended for view creation • A recommender engine to propose views based on data characteristics • A set of standard views which can automatically render the modeled data • Extended the standard views EMF currently supports
Another Quick Demo • We have customized the Java data model to only show classes and interfaces.
Questions we are struggling with • Is this work relevant to industry today? • How can we align ourselves with industry partners to achieve our research goals and validate this work?