Many available software modelling tools are little helpful for developers, since they are often used only for documentation purposes or they can only generate code scaffolds from static models. The consequence is that models from the analysis and design phases are not sufficiently maintained during the implementation and thus no longer reflect the current state of code. We investigate the construction of more powerful software tools that are able to support and/or guarantee the synchronisation of analysis/design and implementation artefacts without limiting the developer in his present implementation capabilities.
Some relevant topics are:

• MDD (Model Driven Development): code generation and meta-modelling
• MDA (Model Driven Architecture)
• Using UML 2.0 to model and simulate behaviour
• Compiler construction
• Enterprise Design Patterns

The ActiveCharts approach combines models from the analysis and design phases with (handwritten) code from the implementation phase in a novel way. An application's control flow is modelled using UML 2 activity diagrams. They are interpreted by the ActiveChartsIDE runtime environment to the effect that they can be simulated and visualised. Features such as breakpoints and stepwise execution simplify debugging the application.
Analysis and design artifacts are seamlessly adopted for the implementation phase. It is our goal to narrow down the gaps between different phases of the software development process and to improve the documentation and maintainablility of software products.
Detailed information is available through the ActiveCharts homepage.