How EvoStreets Are Observed in Three-Dimensional and Virtual Reality Environments

Abstract

We present our paper published in the proceedings of the 27th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER). In an experiment in which 34 participants had to analyze cloning in existing software systems using the EvoStreets visualization, we found indications that the movement patterns of the participants differ depending on whether they are in a 2.5D (pseudo-3D; monitor with keyboard and mouse) or virtual reality (VR) environment. In a follow-up study, which we present in this work, we analyzed the results of this experiment in more details, to examine whether not only movement is affected by these environments, but also the way how EvoStreets are observed. Beyond that, the paper proposes six visualization and user interaction concepts that are specific to the kind of environment.