Integrating Heterogeneous Tools into Model-Centric Development of Interactive Applications

Abstract

The development of successful interactive applications often requires high efforts in creative design tasks to build high quality user interfaces. Such creative development tasks - such as user interface design or design of specific features like 3D objects - are usually performed using different tools optimized for the respective task. For example, in early development stages, tools like Photoshop or Flash are established for creating user interface prototypes. 3D graphics is usually developed using 3D authoring tools.In this paper we propose a general approach to integrate heterogeneous tools into model-centric development. Thereby, the models act as central hub between different specific tools and development steps. This enables excellent support for creative design while using concepts from model driven engineering, such as explicit metamodels and transformations, to facilitate a well-coordinated development and ensure consistency of the resulting overall application. We illustrate this approach by concrete examples from different application domains.