Pounamu: A meta-tool for exploratory domain-specific visual language tool development

Domain-specific visual language tools have become important in many domains of software engineering and end user development. However building such tools is very challenging with a need for multiple views of information and multi-user support, the ability for users to change tool diagram and meta-model specifications while in use, and a need for an open architecture for tool integration. We describe Pounamu, a meta-tool for realising such visual design environments. We describe the motivation for Pounamu, its architecture and implementation and illustrate examples of domain-specific visual language tools that we have developed with Pounamu.