Metamodel

What is a metamodel?

The metamodel is the items to be designed and their structural definitions.

Example definition

• Design document system and description items
• Elements and their attributes that appear as design inputs and outputs
• Hierarchical structure of structures, whether logical or physical
• Relationship between design elements

Items that were previously defined as design document templates can now be defined in the metamodel.

With a general-purpose document creation tool, you can freely describe the design contents, so you may design without noticing inconsistencies or constraint violations. On the other hand, with Next Design, it is possible to set constraints on the hierarchical structure and condition the objects that can be related, so you can naturally design according to the metamodel.

The type of design element defined in the metamodel is Entity, Parent-child relationship of design elements (constraint of hierarchical structure) and reference relationship between design elements are called Relationship.

Relationship between model and metamodel

A model is a unit of any design information about a design target. A metamodel is a definition of the structure of design information and design items.

Info

• In the object-oriented way, metamodel entities are classes and models are instances.

All models designed by Next Design are created according to the metamodel, so the model that is consistent with the structure and items specified in the metamodel is inevitably created.

Conversely, you cannot add undefined design items to the metamodel or change the model to one that does not fit the structure, and you can only create a model that complies with the constraints specified in the metamodel. This is a big difference between general-purpose writing tools and Next Design.