A Design of Automatic Visualizations for Divide-and-Conquer Algorithms

Velázquez‐Iturbide, J. Ángel; Pérez-Carrasco, Antonio; Urquiza-Fuentes, Jaime

doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2008.12.060

Cited by 16 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…SRec is a program visualization system aimed at displaying recursive processes coded in Java [5] [6]. The system provides several graphical representations: traces, the control stack and, above all, recursion trees.…”

Section: A the Srec Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interactive visualization as an aid to develop dynamic programming algorithms

Velázquez‐Iturbide

Pastor-Herranz

Pérez-Carrasco

2015

2015 International Symposium on Computers in Education (SIIE)

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Dynamic programming is an algorithm design technique that is very difficult to learn and apply. In this paper, we introduce two extensions of the recursion visualization system SRec, intended to support dynamic programming. Firstly, SRec supports the generation of recursion forests (i.e. structured collections of recursion trees) to enhance the understanding of complex, multiple recursive algorithms. Secondly, SRec supports some phases of the systematic development of dynamic programming algorithms: checking recursion redundancy, generation of the dependency graph associated to a recursion tree, and matching the graph to a table. These facilities require high degree of interactivity to be effective. The paper illustrates the new facilities with a dynamic programming algorithm for the sequence alignment problem. We successfully applied the new version of SRec to a number of algorithms, and we are currently using it in a course con advanced algorithms.

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Section: A the Srec Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The paper presents two extensions of the recursion visualization system SRec [5] [6], intended to support instruction of dynamic programming. These extensions are based on a graphical representation of recursion, namely recursion trees.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interactive visualization as an aid to develop dynamic programming algorithms

Velázquez‐Iturbide

Pastor-Herranz

Pérez-Carrasco

2015

2015 International Symposium on Computers in Education (SIIE)

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“…Variants of either traces or recursion trees have also been used to better illustrate divide-and-conquer algorithms [7 (p.158),8]; at each step, they focus on a part of the main data structure. It has also been noticed that some visualizations are effective both to show the inductive definition and the run-time behavior of divide-and-conquer algorithms, for instance, a sequence of visualizations of the main data structure [8].…”

Section: Visualizations Of Recursionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Version 1.1 enhanced substantially its interaction facilities, as shown here. Finally, version 1.2 of SRec supports three additional visualizations, specific to divide-and-conquer algorithms [8]; the system is currently capable of simultaneously showing two views. This evolution is partially due to the results of usability evaluations it has been subject to.…”

Section: Visualizations Of Recursion In Srecmentioning

confidence: 99%

InfoVis Interaction Techniques in Animation of Recursive Programs

Velázquez‐Iturbide

Pérez-Carrasco

2010

Algorithms

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Algorithm animations typically assist in educational tasks aimed simply at achieving understanding. Potentially, animations could assist in higher levels of cognition, such as the analysis level, but they usually fail in providing this support because they are not flexible or comprehensive enough. In particular, animations of recursion provided by educational systems hardly support the analysis of recursive algorithms. Here we show how to provide full support to the analysis of recursive algorithms. From a technical point of view, animations are enriched with interaction techniques inspired by the information visualization (InfoVis) field. Interaction tasks are presented in seven categories, and deal with both static visualizations and dynamic animations. All of these features are implemented in the SRec system, and visualizations generated by SRec are used to illustrate the article

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