Visualizing Timed, Hierarchical Code Structures in AscoGraph

Antescofo is a state-of-the-art software package for mixed music authorship and performance. In this paper, we apply an information visualisation perspective to a set of revisions in the timeline-based representation of action items in Asco Graph, the dedicated user interface to Antescofo. Our contribution is two-fold: (a) a design study of the proposed new model, and (b) a technical, algorithmic component. In the former, we show how our model relates to principles of information coherence and clarity, facility of seeking and navigation, hierarchical distinction and explicit linking. In the latter, we frame the problem of arranging action rectangles in a 2D space as a strip packing problem, with the additional constraint that the (horizontal) time coordinates of each block are fixed. We introduce three algorithms of increasing complexity for automatic arrangement, estimate their packing performance and analyse their strengths and weaknesses. We evaluate the systemic improvements achieved and their applicability for other time-based datasets, while noting the limitations of the model and resulting directions for future research.