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Graphical Trace Object (GTO) Tool
Navy SBIR 2008.1 - Topic N08-003 NAVAIR - Mrs. Janet McGovern - [email protected] Opens: December 10, 2007 - Closes: January 9, 2008 N08-003 TITLE: Graphical Trace Object (GTO) Tool TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Human Systems, Weapons ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA-280 - Tomahawk Weapons System Program, ACAT 1C The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation. OBJECTIVE: Develop an innovative technology concept to visualize and analyze software in real-time. DESCRIPTION: Develop a mechanism that provides a visual means to analyze the dynamic nature of software, both local and distributed, for purposes of debugging and optimization. The analyst using the GTO Tool would need the ability to graphically display the objects in an application as it runs, traverse the objects in the application, observe the objects as they are instantiated or deleted, graphically display calls to an object, display pointer possession, set triggers, visualize the contents of an object, visualize orphaned objects, and display memory leaks. In addition, the system must allow the operator to graphically traverse memory, both heap and stack, and display the contents in human readable fashion, when appropriate. The developed system should include the capability of performing quantitative performance analysis, including the number of times each object method is called, the number of times memory is allocated and deleted, and should support the ability to make timing measurements. The system should support both single and multi threaded applications. PHASE I: Develop an innovative concept to visualize a running software application in real-time. Demonstrate the technical merit of the proposed solution. PHASE II: Develop, demonstrate and validate a prototype of the GTO Tool and innovations developed in Phase I. Evaluate the utility of the approach in providing improved analysis. PHASE III: Develop and mature the prototype capability for use in the development of the Tactical Tomahawk Weapon Control System (TTWCS) in a major upgrade scheduled to be done in v.8, and other programs that would benefit from the technology. PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Recently there has been much interest in understanding complex software once it has been coded and deployed. This product could be used by analysts to optimize and debug new software, as well as understand large, complex legacy systems. While advances in standardization of software design notation supports the ability to provide greater understanding of the developed systems (structure) and the current state of the art debugging tools provide low level run-time analysis (execution), no existing tool bridges the gap between structure and execution. It is an area that shows promise in improving the overall quality of complex systems. REFERENCES: 2. A Principled Taxonomy of Software Visualization; Blaine A. Price, Ronald M. Baecker, Ian S. Small 3. JIVE Visualizing Java in Action; Steven P. Reiss http://csdl2.computer.org/comp/proceedings/icse/2003/1877/00/18770820.pdf KEYWORDS: Software Visualization; Dynamic Analysis; Software Design; Software Architecture; Analysis Tools; Debugging TPOC: (401)832-2869
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