Tool support for transforming Unified Modelling Language sequence diagram to coloured Petri nets

Abstract

Modern software systems are expected to be dependable and the development of such systems requires strong modelling and analysis methods. Model-Driven Development is becoming a mainstream practice in software development to cater for that need. Models help to cope with the large scale and complexity of software systems by specifying the structural and behavioural aspects of the system and providing a means of communication between domain experts, analysts, designers and developers. Consequently, there is an increasing need for being able to combine the benefits of popular design approaches and formal models to contribute to better software products. Sequence Diagram-to-Coloured Petri Net (SD2CPN) is a scenario-based model transformation tool with analysis capabilities. It captures scenarios using Unified Modelling Language sequence diagrams and transforms them into coloured Petri nets that enable reliable analysis of the system models. The model transformations are based on the strongly consistent model-to-model transformation rules that are formally defined previously as part of this research. This paper presents the design, implementation, main features and usage of SD2CPN tool.