SimulationandAnimationofVisualLanguagesbasedonTypedAlgebraicGraphTransformationvorgelegtvonDiplom InformatikerinClaudiaErmelFakultat¨ IV–ElektrotechnikundInformatik–derTechnischenUniversitat¨ BerlinzurErlangungdesakademischenGradesDoktorinderIngenieurwissenschaften–Dr. Ing. –genehmigteDissertationPromotionsausschuss:Vorsitzender: Prof. Dr. M.AlexaBerichter: Prof. Dr. H.Ehrig Prof. Dr. H. J.KreowskiTagderwissenschaftlichenAussprache: 21. Juli2006Berlin2006D83AbstractInrecentyears,visualmodelsrepresentedbygraphshavebecomeverypopularinsystemsdevelopment,asthewide spreaduseofUMLandPetrinetsproves. Visualmodelingtech niquesprovideanintuitive,yetprecisewaytomodelthestructureandbehaviorofsystemsat their natural level of abstraction. Validating model behavior is one of the main aims ofvisual behavior modeling. To express the semantics of visual models, the transformationof graphs plays a similar central role as term rewriting in the traditional case of textualmodels. Theareaofgraphtransformationprovidesarule basedsettingtodefinethesyntaxand semantics of visual models. The well founded theoretical results support the formalreasoningaboutgraph basedmodelsatalllevels.Themainobjectiveofthisthesisistoimprovethevalidationprocessforvisualbehavioralmodels by providing a formal framework and tool support for simulation and animationbasedongraphtransformation.