Visual analytics is the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces. In this paper, we present an adaptation of the visual analytics framework to the context of software understanding for maintenance. We discuss the similarities and differences of the general visual analytics context with the software maintenance context, and present in detail an instance of a visual software analytics application for the build optimization of large-scale code bases. Our application combines and adapts several data mining and information visualization techniques in answering several questions that help developers in assessing and reducing the build cost of such code bases by means of user-driven, interactive analysis techniques.
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