Automatically Bridging UML Profiles to MOF Metamodels

In Model-Driven Engineering, UML profiles and MOF-based Domain Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) are the most used approaches for describing domain specific applications. The choice of the right approach depends on several aspects, such as tool support, expressivity, complexity of models, company policies. In general, profiled UML models are very much used since they are intuitive for designers and model editors already exist, however they are intrinsically complex for model manipulation (e.g., Transformation, analysis), conversely, domain specific models are more concise and easy to be manipulated, but they require an initial effort in terms of designers training and model editors development. In this paper we propose an approach that allows getting the best of the two worlds: on one side designers can use UML profiles familiar to them, on the other side DSML models (automatically generated from profiled UML models) enable a better model manipulation. Our approach is based on an automatic bridge between UML profiles and MOF metamodels (which are the main artifacts of MOF-based DSMLs). The bridge is transparent to the user since it autonomously operates both on UML profiles and all the involved models. The bridge is realized through model transformation techniques in the Eclipse platform. In this paper we show its application on a case study based on SysML.