Executable Multi-Layered Software Models

This paper introduces a novel software visualisation and animation method, manifested in a prototype software tool - AnimArch. The introduced method is based on model fusion of static and dynamic models. The static model is represented by class diagram while the dynamic model is represented by source code written in high-level Object Action Language from xUML (executable UML). The class diagram defines architecture that is animated in response to real-time execution of the source code. Moreover, additional object diagram layer represents all object instances present in runtime. The AnimArch also features source code generation to Python, to bridge the gap from design to implementation. This paper provides detailed description of the modelling method and screenshots of the accompanying software tool.