Open Source UML Design Quality Measurement

SDMetrics announces the release of SDMetrics V2.2, a software design quality measurement tool for the Unified Modeling Language (UML). SDMetrics measures structural design properties such as coupling, size, and complexity of UML designs. SDMetrics also checks design rules to automatically detect incomplete or incorrect design, and adherence to style guidelines such as circular dependencies or naming conventions.

Software developers use this information to focus their design reviews and testing efforts on the potentially critical areas that are likely sources of reliability or maintainability problems in their software designs. UML design measurement also helps to identify opportunities for design refactoring, and supports effort estimation, project planning and monitoring.

Starting with version 2.2, the Java source code of the metrics engine of SDMetrics is available under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL). The metrics engine is the core subsystem of SDMetrics that calculates the object-oriented design quality metrics and rules. The metrics engine evaluates user-defined rules and metrics, that are tailored to the users’ local development processes, usage of the UML, and design review checklists.

The metrics engine operates with all UML modeling tools that support the UML model interchange format XMI. The XMI import facility of the metrics engine is customizable to handle non-standard or proprietary extension of the UML and XMI.

The open source release of the SDMetrics V2.2 metrics engine allows software tool developers to integrate some or all of SDMetrics’ core functionality into their own applications.

The AGPL licensed metrics engine is freely available for download at http://www.sdmetrics.com. The metrics engine can also be licensed commercially. The SDMetrics V2.2 application for end users sells for 129 Euros (approx. 180 US$). SDMetrics and its metrics engine run on all platforms that support the Java 6 runtime environment. SDMetrics was first released in December 2002.

Contact Information

Juergen Wuest

MSc

SDMetrics

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