Date of Award

12-1990

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Computer Engineering

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Gary B. Lamont, PhD

Abstract

Algorithm animation is a visualization method used to enhance understanding of functioning of an algorithm or program. Visualization is used for many purposes, including education, algorithm research, performance analysis, and program debugging. This research applies algorithm animation techniques to programs developed for parallel architectures, with specific on the Intel iPSC/2 hypercube. While both P-time and NP-time algorithms can potentially benefit from using visualization techniques, the set of NP-complete problems provides fertile ground for developing parallel applications, since the combinatoric nature of the problems makes finding the optimum solution impractical. The primary goals for this visualization system are: Data should be displayed as it is generated. The interface to the targe program should be transparent, allowing the animation of existing programs. Flexibility - the system should be able to animate any algorithm. The resulting system incorporates and extends two AFIT products: the AFIT Algorithm Animation Research Facility (AAARF) and the Parallel Resource Analysis Software Environment (PRASE). AAARF is an algorithm animation system developed primarily for sequential programs, but is easily adaptable for use with parallel programs. PRASE is an instrumentation package that extracts system performance data from programs on the Intel hypercubes. Since performance data is an essential part of analyzing any parallel program, views of the performance data are provided as an elementary part of the system. Custom software is designed to interface these systems and to display the program data. The program chosen as the example for this study is a member of the NP-complete problem set; it is a parallel implementation of a general Set Covering Problem (SCP).

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GCE-ENG-90D-07

DTIC Accession Number

ADA231258

Download

Share

COinS