Visual Modeling of Complex Systems: The Kiel System
Reinhard von Hanxleden

Citation
Reinhard von Hanxleden. "Visual Modeling of Complex Systems: The Kiel System". Talk or presentation, 4, October, 2007.

Abstract
Overview of Kiel.
From the website:

Statecharts provide an effective graphical notation, not only for the specification and design of reactive systems, but also for the simulation of the modeled system behavior. However in realistic systems, one is confronted with large and unmanageable graphics due to a high number of components or from interaction and interdependencies. A problem is that existing modeling tools do not offer good mechanisms for abstracting or condensing Statechart representations. The problem becomes even more dramatic when starting to simulate the system, as modular designs typically instantiate Statecharts several times, and each instance may have its own simulation status. Statechart modeling tools generally support Statechart simulation, where the system under development (SUD) is subjected to some input stimuli, and the Statechart model is animated according to the current configuration of the SUD. The paradigm generally offered is that the Statechart is shown as drawn by the user, and active states and transitions are marked in a specific color. This is fine if the model is small enough to be visible on the screen in its entirety; it becomes problematic for realistic, larger models.

At the Real-Time and Embedded Systems group the tool KIEL (Kiel Integrated Environment for Layout) is developed, which presents an alternative paradigm for visualizing Statecharts during simulation. The basic idea is to dynamically construct a view of the system model that includes all active states (the focus) and their parent states (the context); all other states are hidden. This constitutes a dynamic variant of the semantic focus-and-context representation. This not only considers the static structure of a Statechart, but also a specific configuration that the system is in. We call this a Dynamic Statechart Normal Form (DSNF), which lead to dynamic Statecharts

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Citation formats

• HTML

  Reinhard von Hanxleden. <a
  href="http://chess.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/349.html"
  ><i>Visual Modeling of Complex Systems: The Kiel
  System</i></a>, Talk or presentation,  4,
  October, 2007.

• Plain text

  Reinhard von Hanxleden. "Visual Modeling of Complex
  Systems: The Kiel System". Talk or presentation,  4,
  October, 2007.

• BibTeX

  @presentation{vonHanxleden07_VisualModelingOfComplexSystemsKielSystem,
      author = {Reinhard von Hanxleden},
      title = {Visual Modeling of Complex Systems: The Kiel System},
      day = {4},
      month = {October},
      year = {2007},
      abstract = {Overview of <a
                href="http://www.informatik.uni-kiel.de/en/rtsys/kiel/">Kiel</a>.
                <br><i>From the website</i>: <p>Statecharts
                provide an effective graphical notation, not only
                for the specification and design of reactive
                systems, but also for the simulation of the
                modeled system behavior. However in realistic
                systems, one is confronted with large and
                unmanageable graphics due to a high number of
                components or from interaction and
                interdependencies. A problem is that existing
                modeling tools do not offer good mechanisms for
                abstracting or condensing Statechart
                representations. The problem becomes even more
                dramatic when starting to simulate the system, as
                modular designs typically instantiate Statecharts
                several times, and each instance may have its own
                simulation status. Statechart modeling tools
                generally support Statechart simulation, where the
                system under development (SUD) is subjected to
                some input stimuli, and the Statechart model is
                animated according to the current configuration of
                the SUD. The paradigm generally offered is that
                the Statechart is shown as drawn by the user, and
                active states and transitions are marked in a
                specific color. This is fine if the model is small
                enough to be visible on the screen in its
                entirety; it becomes problematic for realistic,
                larger models. <p>At the Real-Time and Embedded
                Systems group the tool KIEL (Kiel Integrated
                Environment for Layout) is developed, which
                presents an alternative paradigm for visualizing
                Statecharts during simulation. The basic idea is
                to dynamically construct a view of the system
                model that includes all active states (the focus)
                and their parent states (the context); all other
                states are hidden. This constitutes a dynamic
                variant of the semantic focus-and-context
                representation. This not only considers the static
                structure of a Statechart, but also a specific
                configuration that the system is in. We call this
                a Dynamic Statechart Normal Form (DSNF), which
                lead to dynamic Statecharts },
      URL = {http://chess.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/349.html}
  }
  

Posted by Christopher Brooks on 5 Oct 2007.
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