CodeHouse: VR Code Visualization Tool

Derivative software development complicates the base software over the years of enhancement and maintenance. It reduces the source code readability, taking developers a long time to understand the software structure and its various parts. In software engineering, software is often compared to buildings. We propose to use this metaphor from a new prospective to help developers understand the existing software efficiently. In this paper, we present a tool called "CodeHouse" that visualizes the source code of the software in a VR space as if it were a house. By placing rooms, which represent modules of the software, on the inside of a virtual cylinder, the CodeHouse makes it possible for the developers to understand both the whole structure of the software and the details of individual program parts before they begin derivative development. The CodeHouse also links with a debugger and helps developers to understand the dynamic behaviors of the program.