Atom3: A tool for multi-formalism and meta-modelling

Abstract

This article introduces the combined use of multi-formalism modelling and meta-modelling to facilitate computer assisted modelling of complex systems. The approach allows one to model different parts of a system using different formalisms. Models can be automatically converted between formalisms thanks to information found in a Formalism Transformation Graph (FTG), proposed by the authors. To aid in the automatic generation of multi-formalism modelling tools, formalisms are modelled in their own right (at a meta-level) within an appropriate formalism. This has been implemented in the interactive tool AToM3. This tool is used to describe formalisms commonly used in the simulation of dynamical systems, as well as to generate custom tools to process (create, edit, transform, simulate, optimise,…) models expressed in the corresponding formalism. AToM3 relies on graph rewriting techniques and graph grammars to perform the transformations between formalisms as well as for other tasks, such as code generation and operational semantics specification.