Treffer: Software Visualisation of Java Programs in

Visualisation is a powerful method for explaining how programs work. However, while it is advantageous in theory, it is not used as frequently as it might be. Patterns may be used to describe architectures, so in this paper we present a pattern language in two parts. The first part describes a set of patterns for approaching the development of program-specific visualisations. The second focusses on actual implementation of the visualisations using the InspectJ framework, which uses AspectJ to monitor programs at run time. The patterns step through the process of building a visualisation from start to finish, featuring a running example of the development of a visualisation for a simulation program. After reading these patterns, you should be able to use InspectJ to create visualisations for your own Java programs.