Recommendation

Has Potential

Link

http://www.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de/courses/ss98/audii/applets/BST/SplayTree-Example.html; http://aleph0.clarku.edu/%7Eachou/cs102/examples/bst_animation/

Delivery Method

Java Applet

License

Unlicensed Sourcecode

Language

English

Author

Doug Ierardi; Ta-Wei Li

Institution

University of Southern California

Project

StandAlone

RelationshipToProject

StandAlone

Works

Yes

Description

This AV is a physics simulation-based java applet that provides text explanations and animations for the splay tree together. It demonstrated just Splay Trees unlike many other tools that provides more algorithms such as BST, AVL. It allows users to execute the basic function of splay, insert, delete and locate. It has highly intuitive animations but with limitative user control options. There is no animation speed control, no user input data, no random data generation, no ‘BACK’ and ‘NEXT’ button, no step animation. Instead of allowing them to make their own data, it allows users to click one of nodes, execute one of operation such as find, delete and insert.

Evaluation

The SplayJavaTree has good features. First, its animation is neat and highly intuitive due to using physics based simulation. In addition, it provides good description about each step performed. The web page explains about Splay trees in brief which is very helpful in getting started. The algorithm documentation provided along the AV also proves pretty nifty when it comes to the understanding of the basic functionality of the splay trees. An AV page for the basic operation rotation is made separately. There is a very simple step instruction and pseudo code. It provides random generation of input. This feature will provide beginners with convenience although it advanced learners need more functionality, user own data generation. Input is automatically generated when an operation is selected on a node. In other words, through interactivity through mouse selection users can select a node and perform the available operations. This tool is good visualization tool for understanding the algorithm since it uses nice animation to display various nodes with different color and operation that are performed on these nodes. Although the SplayJavaTree provides nice features for beginners, it needs to be improved in some sense. Most of all, it provides users with option for user’s own data construction, it is very important to understand algorithm for naïve users. This feature would meaningful in terms of constructivism or situated cognition by providing users with cognition environment to be convenient to them. It has neither history maintained nor no animation speed control. There are no buttons such as next or back, reverse which would allow stepwise tracing. To make this AV more beneficial, one can include some documentation and static pictures of how the rotation actually takes place and what is zig-zag movement exactly. Note: The links above appear to be from courses that installed copies of the distribution. The original USC distribution appears to be missing.

ActivityLevel

GoodFor

Teaching the Concept

Screenshots

Videos

References

HowToUse

First Visited

2006-06-07

Last Visited

2010-02-16

Last Updated

1996

Topic

SplayTrees

Community

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