Visual Requirements Editor for Sysiphus

What is Sysiphus?

Sysiphus is a suite of tools for developing and collaborating over software engineering models. It integrates all different kinds of software engineering artifacts into one central repository by using a common meta-model, the rational-based unified project model. Different clients for manipulating the artifacts in the repository include a rich desktop client, a web interface and an eclipse plugin. Sysiphus is actively developed at our chair and is part of other research and industrial projects.

Problem Statement

Editing requirements in tabular or document views makes it difficult to visualize the interdependencies (traces) among different artefacts (model elements). Especially in requirements engineering there are many important traces, e.g. a requirements being implemented in a use case, a use case involving several classes, a hazard triggered by many causes, a cause mitigated by a new requirement. To effectively build awareness on and manage these traces an advanced visualization is needed. In Sysiphus requirements, hazards, use cases, classes a.s.o are all model elements. Model elements can share links among each other. So in essence an instance of the Sysiphus data model is basically an instance of a directed graph with typed nodes and edges. Visualizing this graph in a diagram view including the means to modify the graph in this view is key to manage the traces. The unified diagram view is very similar to well-known diagram views, such as a class diagram view, but comprises all model elements defined by the Sysiphus RUSE model. The complexity of this model and its instances will require sophisticated filtering and layout.

Project

• Supervisor: Prof. Bernd Bruegge, Ph.D.
• Assistant (contact for more details): Maximilian Kögel