DATABASE-DRIVEN 3D SIMULATION A METHOD SPECIFICATION USING THE UML METAMODEL

摘要

Many benefits derive from combining database technology with 3D simulation systems and similar applications. Nevertheless, only few systems follow up this approach so far. Compared to them, our approach for runtime database synchronization uniquely provides a tight integration of real-time 3D simulation and object-oriented database technology including persistence, collaboration, arbitrary data schema, and versioning. To enable its adoption, we previously stated the necessary metamodel-based requirements. These suggest to use the UML as a pivot metamodel with model transformations to and from a simulation database and an external database. This guarantees the underlying UML modeling concepts (e.g. class, property, association, instance specification) to implicitly exist in both databases. It also allows to indirectly refer to the databases' meta-models by using the corresponding UML metaclasses. This is the basis for our new generalized method specification presented in this paper, which is independent from actual database implementations.