Topological Analysis and Visualization of Cyclical Behavior in Memory Reference Traces

A.N.M. Imroz Choudhury, Bei Wang, Paul Rosen, Valerio Pascucci
(To be presented at PacificVis 2012)

Abstract

We demonstrate the application of topological analysis techniques to the rather unexpected domain of software visualization. We collect a memory reference trace from a running program, recasting the linear flow of trace records as a high-dimensional point cloud in a metric space. We use topological persistence %and circular parametrization to automatically detect significant circular structures in the point cloud, which represent recurrent or cyclical runtime program behaviors. We visualize such recurrences using radial plots to display their time evolution, offering multi-scale visual insights, and detecting potential candidates for memory performance optimization. We then present several case studies to demonstrate some key insights obtained using our techniques.

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