Petri Nets as Semantic Domain for Diagram Notations

This paper summarizes the work carried out by the authors during the last years. It proposes an approach for defining extensible and flexible formal interpreters for diagram notations based on high-level timed Petri nets. The approach defines interpreters by means of two sets of rules. The first set specifies the correspondences between the elements of the diagram notation and those of the semantic domain (Petri nets); the second set transforms events and states of the semantic domain into visual annotations on the elements of the diagram notation. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated through MetaEnv, a prototype tool that allows users to implement special-purpose interpreters.