Towards a default reading for constraint diagrams

Abstract

Constraint diagrams are a diagrammatic notation which may be used to express logical constraints. They were designed to complement the Unified Modeling Language in the development of software systems. They generalize Venn diagrams and Euler circles, and include facilities for quantification and navigation of relations. Due to the lack of a lin- ear ordering of symbols inherent in a diagrammatic language which ex- presses logical statements, some constraint diagrams have more than one intuitive meaning. We generalize, from an example based approach, to suggest a default reading for constraint diagrams. This reading is usually unique, but may require a small number of simple user choices.