A Visualization Tool for Reverse-Engineering of Complex Component Applications

Nowadays, component applications can contain thousands of components whose structure is difficult to understand. As a solution, we proposed a visualization technique that removes large part of connections from component binding diagrams. This technique uses a separated components area to display components with a big amount of connections detached from the main diagram. In this area, component interfaces are shown clustered instead of showing them all. Benefit of this approach is improvement of application understanding by reducing the diagram´s visual clutter during its reverse engineering. In this work, we present implementation of the technique in a form of a tool, called CoCA-Ex. CoCA-Ex is a publicly accessible web application and a reverse-engineering solution for various component systems. The tool is built on modern technologies such as HTML5 and JavaScript and has Java EE server backend.