Capella (engineering)

Capella

Developer(s)	PolarSys[1] Industry Working Group of the Eclipse Foundation
Stable release	1.0.0[2]
Written in	Java
Platform	Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows
Type	Model Driven Architecture
License	Eclipse Public License
Website	http://www.polarsys.org/capella

Capella is an Open Source solution hosted at polarsys.org. The solution provides a process and tooling for graphical modeling of systems, hardware or software architectures, in accordance with the principles and recommendations defined by the Arcadia method. Capella is an initiative of PolarSys, one of several Eclipse Foundation working groups.

Usage

Capella is mainly used for modeling complex and safety-critical systems in embedded systems development for industries such as aerospace, avionics, transportation, space, communications and security and automotive.

History

Capella was created by Thales in 2007, and has been under continuous development and evolution since then. The objective is to contribute to the transformation of engineering, providing an engineering environment which approach is based on models rather than focused on documents, piloted by a process, and offering, by construction, ways to ensure effective co-engineering. Operational experts from engineering then defined a unified language for modeling architectures in the group and specified the associated tooling, Capella.

Capella provides ergonomics that are similar to PowerPoint / Visio and Excel tools. Hence, the resulting environment is actually intuitive and allows engineers to focus on defining their architectures instead of learning and operating complex generic modeling languages, such as UML or SysML, to capture their design requirements. Because it is based on the Arcadia method, it also guides engineers in their activities, which generic modeling tools in general, do not do. In 2015, Capella was released as an Eclipse open source project by PolarSys, a Working Group^[3] of the Eclipse Foundation through the French collaborative project Clarity,^[4] supported by the Banque Publique d’Investissement (Bpifrance^[5]). Capella has its own life cycle. A major release, providing new functionality is delivered each year end while several versions called minor, including bugs fixes, are generally delivered over the course of the year.

Principles

Capella comes with its own metamodel, which defines the language concepts the user can enable in a Capella project. The user creates an instance of this metamodel and can then view the model from various perspectives through diagrams, according to his/her concerns. The user can also, via the palette associated with diagrams, create new model elements. A Capella project consists of a model part ("melodymodeller") and a graphic part ("aird").

Workbench GUI

Diagrams with set of tools

When a Capella project is created, the workbench interface is presented to the user. It contains various areas:

• The "methodological browser" area, shows the user the various engineering phases for architecture modeling and shortcuts to create new diagrams within the given engineering phase; this view also facilitates the "transition" between engineering phases, so as to create links between phases and associated elements;
• The "semantic browser" area provides tools for navigating into the model: for each selected item in the "project" area or on a diagram, the semantic browser area will present the user all references for that element, that is, its capacity or reference relationships and all diagrams in which the element is involved;
• The "project" area is a more traditional view; it is a tree view of the Capella model, and contains all the semantic elements and diagrams created by the user;
• The "diagram" area presents a graphical view of an extract of the model and allows the user to edit the model. The user can create, modify or delete elements and can also change the organization or appearance of elements in the diagram;
• The "properties" area displays all the properties of a selected element in the model or in a diagram.

Diagrams

Through Capella, the user can handle several types of diagrams. The representation of elements in diagrams is governed by a color code specific to each type of analysis. Some examples of diagrams:

• 

  Operational Capabilities

• 

  Operational Architecture

• 

  Logical Architecture

• 

  Physical Architecture

• 

  Functional Scenario

• 

  Class Diagram

Extensibility

The workbench can be enhanced or specialized for a given business need, according to the concept of "Point of View", defined by the standard ISO/IEC 42010.^[6] These extensions provide, for example:

• The ability to manage new information specific to a particular engineering need with its associated tooling. For example, non-functional properties such as time constraints for performance analysis, or constraints related to safety or security, cost of component for cost analysis, mass, etc. ;
• The ability to specify the engineering approach with various architectural styles;
• The ability to add new features to the workbench, such as a documentation export or a specialization of the transition system / subsystem mechanism.

Compatibility

Capella is supported on environments based on Java 7 and higher on the following platforms:

• GNU / Linux
• Mac OS X
• Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7

Dependencies

The latest version of Capella is based on:

• Sirius 3.0.1
• The Eclipse 3.8 Juno platform
• Eclipse Generation Factories (EGF) 1.2.0^[7]
• Eclipse Orbit^[8]
• Kitalpha:^[9] an open source solution of the PolarSys industry working group of the Eclipse Foundation
• Eclipse EMF Diff / Merge ^[10]

Community and communication

You can find links to the community and more information on the PolarSys website. Capella documentation is available for download from the website.^[11]

Capella was presented at several events:

Conference	Title	Date	Place
SPLC	Tooling Support for Variability and Architectural Patterns in Systems Engineering	23/07/2015	Nashville
MODELS	CLARITY: Open-Sourcing the Model-Based Systems Engineering Solution Capella[12]	29/09/2015	Ottawa
INCOSE International Symposium	Implementing the MBSE Cultural Change: Organization, Coaching and Lessons Learned[13]	14/07/2015	Seattle
INCOSE International Symposium	From initial investigations up to large-scale rollout of an MBSE method and its supporting workbench: the Thales experience[14]	14/07/2015	Seattle
EclipseCon France	Capella time-lapse: A system architecture model in 30 minutes[15]	25/06/2015	Toulouse
EclipseCon France	Systems Modeling with the ARCADIA method and the Capella tool[16]	24/06/2015	Toulouse
Nouvelle France Industrielle	Presentation of Clarity and Capella to Emmanuel Macron[17]	18/05/2015	École des Mines of Nantes
EclipseCon North America	Capella time-lapse: A system architecture model in 30 minutes[18]	12/03/2015	San Francisco
EclipseCon Europe	Capella on the field: Model-based system engineering use cases[19]	29/10/2014	Ludwigsburg
Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE) Symposium	The Challenges of Deploying MBSE Solutions[20]	28/10/2014	Canberra
Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE) Symposium	Arcadia and Capella in the Field[21]	27/10/2014	Canberra
EclipseCon France	Arcadia / Capella, a field-proven modeling solution for system and software architecture engineering[22]	19/06/2014	Toulouse
EclipseCon North America	Arcadia / Capella, a field-proven modeling solution for system and software architecture engineering[23]	20/03/2015	San Francisco
Complex Systems Design & Management (CSDM)	Model-Based Collaboration for System, Software and Hardware Engineering[24]	04/12/2013	Paris

See also

• Metamodeling
• Model-driven engineering

References

1. "PolarSys website". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
2. "Capella 1.0.0 (latest stable release)". Retrieved 2016-01-04.
3. "PolarSys Proposal for Capella". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
4. "Ecosystem for the Model Based Systems Engineering Solution Capella". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
5. "Bpifrance website". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
6. "ISO / IEC / IEEE 42010: 2011, Systems and software engineering - Architecture description". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
7. "EGF: a Software Factory Tool". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
8. "A repository of versions of bundled third party libraries". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
9. "Kitalpha: an environment to develop and execute MBE". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
10. "EMF Diff / Merge: a diff / merge component for models". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
11. "Capella Documentation". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
12. "CLARITY: Open-Sourcing the Model-Based Systems Engineering Solution Capella" (PDF). Retrieved 2015-10-23.
13. "Implementing the MBSE Cultural Change: Organization, Coaching and Lessons Learned". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
14. "From initial investigations up to large-scale rollout of an MBSE method and its supporting workbench: the Thales experience". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
15. "Capella time-lapse: A system architecture model in 30 minutes". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
16. "Systems Modeling with the ARCADIA method and the Capella tool". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
17. "Obeo et Thales rencontrent le ministre de l’Economie lors du lancement du projet Industrie du futur". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
18. "Capella time-lapse: A system architecture model in 30 minutes". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
19. "Capella on the field: Model-based system engineering use cases" (PDF). Retrieved 2015-10-23.
20. "The Challenges of Deploying MBSE Solutions". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
21. "Arcadia and Capella in the Field". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
22. "Arcadia / Capella, a field-proven modeling solution for system and software architecture engineering". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
23. "Arcadia / Capella, a field-proven modeling solution for system and software architecture engineering". Retrieved 2015-10-23.
24. "Model-Based Collaboration for System, Software and Hardware Engineering". Retrieved 2015-10-23.