Model Driven Engineering (MDE) is an approach to software development by which software is specified, designed, implemented and deployed through a series of models. While the capabilities of MDE have been realized in many aspects of software development, there is no MDE supported technique for generating information visualizations. Information visualization is a technique that supports human cognition through interactive graphics by enabling users to identify data patterns more easily, summarize information or abstract concepts that are not easily comprehended from the underlying data. As more systems are designed using model driven engineering approaches there is now a need to support a model driven approach for creating such visualizations. This research explores the feasibility of a model driven approach to view creation that is compatible with the goals of MDE.
We approach the problem of developing an MDE technique for view creation in two ways. First, we examine how MDE technologies are used for specifying, designing, and maintaining software systems to uncover the aspects of software customization that are supported through MDE. Second, we analyze six existing visualization tools to determine three functional requirements and six design recommendations for visualization creation and customization tools. Combining MDE principles and information visualization requirements, we propose Model Driven Visualization (MDV), a model based approach to view creation. MDV includes platform independent models for common visualizations, as well as a technique to generate platform specific instances of these models. Finally, using MDV we show that standard visualizations can be recreated in a concise syntax, that is compatible with the goals of model driven engineering.
MDV contributes to the fields of model driven engineering, information visualization and software engineering. In particular, this research 1) provides a collection of formal view models for common information visualization techniques, 2) outlines a method for designing and customizing information visualizations using MDE, 3) presents a code generation technique for integrating MDE with the model-view-controller pattern, and 4) contributes an open-source visualization toolkit to the Eclipse project.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/1048 |
| Date | 07 August 2008 |
| Creators | Bull, Robert Ian |
| Contributors | Storey, Margaret-Anne |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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