(489d) Tools Supporting Implementation of Cape-Open Interfaces

CAPE-OPEN (CO) is an industry standard defining interfaces between software components making up process modelling and simulation tools. The CAPE-OPEN Laboratories Network (CO-LaN) is the not-for-profit organization supporting the CO standard.

Objective

One of the CO-LaN missions is to help adopters of the CO standard in their migration process. Apart from making the CAPE-OPEN specification documentation set available from the CO-LaN website, CO-LaN provides several software tools targeted at developers.

Results

Wizards have been developed for the two main interface specifications, the one for unit operations and the one for thermodynamic and physical properties calculation. These wizards are software tools that automatically generate a large part of the interface layer necessary to wrap a software component. CO-LaN distributes free of charge wizards made by AspenTech, Hyprotech and IFP. Purpose and use of these wizards will be explained.

CO-LaN has developed, and distributes free of charge, a CO Tester Suite that permits independent testing by any developer of a software component. The CO Tester Suite works as a process modelling component with reduced capabilities. The CO Tester Suite checks CO compliance through a series of automatic and user-driven tests.

CO-LaN has developed and distributes free of charge a CAPE-OPEN Logging and Testing Tool that logs any communication through CO interfaces between any two software components. Purpose and use of this tool will be explained.

Conclusion

The set of software tools available from CO-LaN provides developers with the help needed in debugging and testing CAPE-OPEN compliant pieces of software.