Design pattern recovery by visual language parsing

We propose an object oriented (OO) design pattern recovery approach which makes use of a design pattern library, expressed in terms of visual grammars, and based on a visual language parsing technique. We also present a visual environment, which supports the pattern recognition process by automatically retrieving design patterns from imported UML class diagrams. The visual environment has been automatically generated through the VLDesk system, starting from a description of the design pattern grammar.