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A feature-based survey of model view approaches

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Abstract

When dealing with complex systems, information is very often fragmented across many different models expressed within a variety of (modeling) languages. To provide the relevant information in an appropriate way to different kinds of stakeholders, (parts of) such models have to be combined and potentially revamped by focusing on concerns of particular interest for them. Thus, mechanisms to define and compute views over models are highly needed. Several approaches have already been proposed to provide (semi)automated support for dealing with such model views. This paper provides a detailed overview of the current state of the art in this area. To achieve this, we relied on our own experiences of designing and applying such solutions in order to conduct a literature review on this topic. As a result, we discuss the main capabilities of existing approaches and propose a corresponding research agenda. We notably contribute a feature model describing what we believe to be the most important characteristics of the support for views on models. We expect this work to be helpful to both current and potential future users and developers of model view techniques, as well as to any person generally interested in model-based software and systems engineering.

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Notes

  1. http://www.teap-project.org.

  2. http://www.obeosmartea.com.

  3. https://www.opengroup.org/togaf.

  4. http://www.bpmn.org.

  5. http://www.omg.org/spec/ReqIF.

  6. http://www.dblp.org/search.

  7. http://dblp.l3s.de/dblp++.php.

  8. Note that comprehensive general-purpose modeling languages, such as UML, can be regarded as a composition of several domain-specific languages.

  9. http://scholar.google.com.

  10. https://eclipse.org/papyrus.

  11. http://www.polarsys.org.

  12. http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/polarsys.kitalpha.

  13. https://wiki.eclipse.org/VIATRA/Addon/VIATRA_Viewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AtlanModels Team (IMT Atlantique, Inria & LS2N), IMT Atlantique Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, Nantes, France

    Hugo Bruneliere

  2. Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany

    Erik Burger

  3. ICREA, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi Cabot

  4. CDL-MINT, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Manuel Wimmer

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  1. Hugo Bruneliere
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  2. Erik Burger
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  4. Manuel Wimmer
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Correspondence to Hugo Bruneliere.

Additional information

Communicated by Dr. Robert Pettit.

This work has been partially funded by the MoNoGe national collaborative project (French FUI #15), the Electronic Component Systems for European Leadership (ECSEL) Joint Undertaking & the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research/innovation program under grant agreement No. 737494 (MegaM@Rt2 project), the Spanish government (TIN2016-75944-R project), the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy (BMWFW) and National Foundation for Research, Technology and Development. We also would like to thank the various academics and industrials that provided valuable feedback to us on our descriptions of their respective solutions.

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Bruneliere, H., Burger, E., Cabot, J. et al. A feature-based survey of model view approaches. Softw Syst Model 18, 1931–1952 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-017-0622-9

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