Visual programming in three dimensions : visual representations of computational mental models

Abstract

Code is a tool to express logic, method, and function. It has form and is intended to be read by humans. One of the goals of this work is to improve the readability and expression of complex interactions in code. The current visual programming environments that see the most use inside, and outside of Architecture present computation in specific terms. I believe these limits hinder the computational designer or novice programmer from learning other mental models of computation, which will come up as they explore further. This thesis proposes that by relating code to landscape or a building in space, code will both create and inhabit space. To enhance the designer's memory of their program the visual opportunities that visual programming afford will be used to relate uniquely visualized moments in the visual program at a loci in the programming environment. A 3-D visual programming language that can represent code in space, will be able to express the complex abstractions that define computational thinking more intuitively than existing tools, by making them memorable in space.