The MetricView project

MetricView is an activity within the EmpAnADa project at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The research is lead by Michel Chaudron and Christian Lange. The main contributers to the MetricView tool and the MetricView Evolution are Maurice Termeer and Martijn Wijns.

What is the goal of MetricView?

The goal of MetricView is to give more insight into UML models by visualizing software metrics that have been computed by another tool directly on top of the graphical representation of the UML model. Up to now, these metrics (which are the actual entities that should give you insight into the design) are only available in tabular form, while the UML models have all kinds of neat diagrams. MetricViews goal is to somehow visualize these metrics in the UML model, making it more clear so see what's right and what's wrong.

Screenshots of MetricView

Click any of the images below to get a larger view.

Documentation

A preliminary version of the user manual is available here.

ChangeLog

Version 0.01 (16 january 2005)

+ added: reflected changes of 0.09
+ added: code to compute metrics

Download MetricView

Here you can download MetricViewEvolution and MetricView. The original MetricView tool visualizes metrics that were calculated by an external tool on top of existing UML models. MetricViewEvolution provides a lot of additional features: metrics calculations within the tool, several views to explore and navigate UML models, visualization of evolution data. MetricViewEvolution requires Python to be installed on your computer (www.python.org)

Issue with saving screenshots

There currently is a problem with saving a screenshot to disk, this feature does not work at all and causes MetricView to crash. This is a known problem, but is lies deep in one of the API's used and no solution is available yet. If you want to save screenshots, you will need to use the good old print-screen functionality for now.

ChangeLog

Version 0.08 (21 december 2004)

+ fixed bug: various smaller bugs
+ fixed bug: window management state corrupted
  when loading / saving global configuration
+ added: metrics are automatically loaded on model
  load if metrics filename only differs in
  extention
+ added: on startup global configuration if loaded
  from "default.cfg" if available
+ added: support for command line options
+ added: changed mouse behaviour:
    - rotation is now mapped to shift + middle mouse button (scroll-wheel)
    - panning is mapped to middle mouse button (scroll-wheel)
    - moving selected elements is mapped to alt + left mouse button
    - resizing selected elements is mapped to alt + control + left mouse
      button

Version 0.07 (3 december 2004)
+ initial public release

Links to other metrics software

SDMetrics	A similar tool, except that it doesn't display data on the model diagrams itself.
Vil	A tool that can compute various metrics from .NET assemblies, a visualization module is in progress.

Links to related websites

MetricView is part of the EmpAnaDA project, hosted by the Software Architectures and Networks (SAN) group of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

Contact the MetricView team

If you are anywhere near the Eindhoven University of Technology, you can always give us a visit. During weekdays we are usually in our room at HG 5.30 (main building, fifth floor, room 04) during working hours. Otherwise sending us an email is a good alternative. You can reach Christian Lange at c.f.j.lange @ tue.nl.