Simulation and visualization support for user-defined formalisms using meta-modeling and hierarchical formalism transformation

A software environment which is dedicated to modeling and simulation of complex technological systems incorporating various domains has to cover a wide range of schematics and graphical formalisms. Usually, these formalisms are based on different computational models and include continuous as well as discrete-event dynamics. Furthermore, in order to improve the design process, an environment of that kind should provide means for adopting additional formalisms tailored to the needs of a specific domain. In the paper a hierarchical formalism refinement concept is presented. It allows us to introduce efficiently user-defined formalisms along with simulation and analysis facilities into a modeling environment by deriving them from already defined formalisms. This concept has been realized using the modeling language Modelica as the basic model representation and the meta-modeling tool DOME for specifying the graphical editors and the formalism transformations. For the purpose of illustration a basic statechart tool is refined twice. First, a new tool is created which support compound transitions. Then, this new formalism is extended again by introducing differential equations.