An objected-oriented approach to development and integration of graphical user interface and power system framework

The computational systems developed for power system analyses have' been increased in size and complexity. The majority of this software use old programming techniques and procedural languages such as FORTRAN and PASCAL. Object- oriented technology has gained widespread acceptance to overcome the inflexibility of traditional software development, such as maintenance, update and integration of software developed for different programmer's teams. This paper presents a description of the design and implementation of a graphic user interface (GUI) and its integration to a power system framework that is used to develop a distribution system analysis package. Both GUI and power system framework are developed using object-oriented programming (OOP) in C++. The choice of OOP paradigm is due to its modular and hierarchical structure and also capability to make easier the integration, maintenance and reutilization. An example of software and graphical interface, which is used in an electrical utility, demonstrates the proposed approach.