TheoryViz: A Visualizer Tool for Theory of Computing Concepts
Lillian Baker, Sierra Zoe Bennett-Manke, Sebastian Neumann, Ian Njuguna, Ryan Edward Dougherty · 2025
This poster details preliminary work on developing a suite of tools, called TheoryViz, for assisting students within traditional Theory of Computing (ToC) courses. Our goal is for these tools to generate animations automatically. As of this poster, TheoryViz can generate step-by-step animations for building DFAs, simulating them on a given input string, and minimizing them. Crucially, each step links the formal definition of the machine and the visual depiction of that machine with the created animations, and each step moves to the next seamlessly. Our desire is that TheoryViz becomes a new tool for ToC educators to use in the classroom.