From: Kurt Jensen Subject: The next generation of tool support for Coloured Petri Nets To: designCPN@daimi.au.dk Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 14:55:58 +0200 Reply-To: Kurt Jensen Dear Colleagues, We hereby announce the first release of the CPN Tools developed by the CPN Group at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. The CPN Tools are intended to replace Design/CPN which is the most widespread software package for modelling and analysis by means of Coloured Petri Nets. Design/CPN is used by 750 organisations in 50 countries, including 200 commercial enterprises. The CPN Tools are available free of charge for all kinds of users, including commercial companies. The development of the CPN Tools started three years ago, and a total of 15 man-years have been used. The development will continue over the next years with an expected total effort of five man-years per year. The first version of the CPN Tools is a BETA-release that should only be used for experiments and small projects. It is only available on the Windows platform. Later we may also support other platforms. The present version of the CPN Tools supports: - Construction of CPN models - Analysis by means of simulation The user interface has been designed in cooperation with leading HCI experts, and it includes a number of novel interaction mechanisms such as the use of two-handed input by means of a mouse and a trackball. The development has been supported by the Danish National Centre for IT-Research, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia Research Center, and Microsoft Research Limited. Some of the major improvements (compared to Design/CPN) are the following: - Much better user interface; easier and faster to use - Editing and simulation are integrated in a single mode - Much more incremental syntax check and code generation; both take place as background tasks during the construction of the model - Much faster simulation engine The major shortcomings (compared to Design/CPN) are the lack of support for: - Models with fusion sets (to be fixed soon) - Simulation based performance analysis and capacity planning - Message Sequence Charts and other animation facilities - State space construction and analysis Models can be transferred between the CPN Tools and Design/CPN by means of an XML-based text format. The transfer can be done in both directions, and hence, it is e.g. possible to construct models in the CPN Tools and then perform state space analysis by means of Design/CPN. For more details about CPN Tools and the license conditions, please see: http://www.daimi.au.dk/CPNtools/ Kurt Jensen --------------------------------------------------------------------- Kurt Jensen Direct Phone: +45 8942 5612 Professor, Head of Department Secretary: +45 8942 5611 Department of Computer Science Telefax: +45 8942 5624 University of Aarhus Home Phone: +45 8611 4216 IT-parken, Aabogade 34 E-mail: kjensen@daimi.au.dk DK-8200 Aarhus N, Denmark URL: http://www.daimi.au.dk/~kjensen --------------------------------------------------------------------- --- [[ Post messages and summary of replies: designCPN@daimi.au.dk ]] [[ To (un)subscribe, send "help" to: Majordomo@daimi.au.dk ]] [[ The moderator's address: designCPN-owner@daimi.au.dk ]] [[ World Wide Web URL: http://www.daimi.au.dk/designCPN/email/ ]]