Textual diagram layout language and visualization algorithm

Abstract—Graphical diagrams are an excellent source of information for understanding models. On the other hand, editing, storing and versioning models are more efficient in textual representations. In order to combine the advantages of these two representations, diagrams have to be generated from models defined in text. The generated diagrams are usually created by autolayout algorithms based on heuristics. In this paper we argue that automatically laid out diagrams are not ideal. Instead, we propose a textual layout description language that allows users to define the arrangement of those diagram elements they consider important. The paper also presents algorithms that create diagrams according to the layout description and arrange the underspecified elements automatically. The paper reports on the implementation of the proposed layout description language as an embedded language in Java. It is used to generate class and state machine diagrams compatible with the Papyrus UML edi...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: MODELS
• Authors: Balazs Gregorics, Tibor Gregorics, Gábor Ferenc Kovács, Andras Dobreff, Gergely Dévai
• Keywords: MODELS 2015, Natural Language Processing