Research and De­velop­ment of
Reactive Systems

The Bigraph Theory provides a rigorous yet practical foundation for modeling and reasoning about reactive systems. Building on this, the Bigraph Toolkit Suite (BTS) delivers comprehensive, extensible tools for designing and verifying reactive, distributed architectures—spanning ubiquitous computing, IoT, cyber-physical systems, smart spaces, and beyond—complete with integrated simulation and model-checking capabilities.

Explore Toolkit Components Go to GitHub

Reactive System Theory — For Software Developers

BTS is a comprehensive, extensible environment for modeling, simulating, and verifying bigraphical reactive systems. It supports developers to describe dynamic, concurrent, and distributed systems in a formal yet practical way — and to move seamlessly from design, analysis to execution.

  • Metamodeling – BTS defines A family of specialized metamodels, each tailored for specific modeling needs, from high-level concepts to low-level execution details.
  • Validation – All model instances are checked against their metamodels, ensuring structural consistency and eliminating entire classes of modeling errors.
  • Interoperability – Platform-agnostic and implementation-independent, BTS supports rich toolchains and smooth model exchange between formats, frameworks, and environments.
  • Verification – Bigraphical models form a formal language for reasoning about parallel and reactive systems, enabling deep analysis of behaviors, safety properties, and performance.

Explore the Bi­graphical Tool­kit Suite

BTS, i.e., any of its constituents listed below, is licensed according to the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.

Visit the whole Bigraph Toolkit Suite at GitHub

Bigraph Framework

Bigraph MetaModel

Spring Data CDO

BiGGer

Bigellor

BDSL Grammar

BDSL Interpreter Framework

BDSL Interpreter CLI

CDO for Docker

Support

Project Template

Starter template (Gradle/Maven) to jumpstart Bigraph Framework projects.

Take me there!

Tutorials

Hands-on Java tutorials for the Bigraph Framework.


Take me there!

Bigraph Vending Machine (Java)

Java implementation of a bigraph-driven vending machine.

Take me there!

Bigraph Vending Machine (Slides)

Explanatory slide set of the bigraphical vending machine.

Take me there!

BiGGer (Slides)

Accompanying slide set explaining how to simulate bigraphs using GrGen.NET with the BiGGer tool.

Take me there!

BDSL (User Manual)

The user manual of a bigraphical domain-specific language.


Take me there!

Different paths, one goal

BTS unifies diverse modeling and programming approaches through a single, shared metamodel. This common foundation ensures seamless interoperability, no matter which approach you choose.

  • Uniform XMI Representation – All bigraph instances use the XMI standard for XML-based metadata exchange, ensuring seamless interoperability across every API.
  • Intuitive Visual Modeling – Interactive, user-friendly tools make creating and editing bigraphs straightforward and accessible.
  • Powerful Java API – The Bigraph Framework delivers advanced automation and flexibility through a programmatic interface, amplifying the capabilities of the BTS ecosystem.

Combine the Power

BTS APIs span multiple levels of abstraction for building bigraphical models and programs—yet remain fully interoperable. You’re never locked into one: a single application can fluidly mix and match them to harness their combined strengths.

"Both the kind and granularity of a problem suggest the tools to best work with in order to solve the problem."