XRaSE: Towards Virtually Tangible Software using Augmented Reality

Software engineering has seen much progress in recent past including introduction of new methodologies, new paradigms for software teams, and from smaller monolithic applications to complex, intricate, and distributed software applications. However, the way we represent, discuss, and collaborate on software applications throughout the software development life cycle is still primarily using the source code, textual representations, or charts on 2D computer screens - the confines of which have long limited how we visualize and comprehend software systems. In this paper, we present XRaSE, a novel prototype implementation that leverages augmented reality to visualize a software application as a virtually tangible entity. This immersive approach is aimed at making activities like application comprehension, architecture analysis, knowledge communication, and analysis of a software's dynamic aspects, more intuitive, richer and collaborative. A video demonstration is available at https://youtu.be/QZiWHoFRn4g.