Deploying systems visualisation environments: an agent-based approach

This paper reports an approach to the deployment of systems visualisation environments through the use of software agents. It provides a discussion of the issues that should be addressed in the deployment of integrated computer-based visualisation tool sets which, combined with appropriate support, provide the basis for systems´ visualisation solutions. It outlines an approach that addresses these deployment issues through the application of a component-based software engineering methodology that makes use of software agents. In this approach, called the integrated visualisation and description (IV&D) approach, software agents are considered to be knowledge-based software components that encapsulate specific knowledge of the application domain and are used to deploy a systems visualisation environment into this domain. The paper begins with a discussion of the issues relating to the deployment of systems visualisation environments. These are related to a conceptual model of the description process which forms a basis for the IV&D approach. We then discuss the software agents, called IV&D agents, that are used to support the deployment of systems visualisation environments. Finally, we discuss domain characterisation, which provides the knowledge used by IV&D agents to deploy the systems visualisation environments