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Copyright (C) 1998-2003 Henk van de Zandschulp, University of Twente,
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Copyright (C) 1995-2000 Frank Dehne, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the
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Netherlands. All Rights Reserved.
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Last updated : January 20, 2003.
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The Toolkit for Conceptual Modeling is a collection of software tools to
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present conceptual models of software systems in the form of diagrams,
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tables, trees, and the like. A conceptual model of a system is a structure
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used to represent the requirements or architecture of the system. TCM is
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meant to be used for specifying and maintaining requirements for desired
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systems, in which a number of techniques and heuristics for problem
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analysis, function refinement, behavior specification, and architecture
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specification are used. TCM takes the form of a suite of graphical editors
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that can be used in these design tasks. These editors can be categorized
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* Generic editors for generic diagrams, generic tables and generic trees.
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* Structured Analysis (SA) editors for entity-relationship diagrams, data
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and event flow diagrams, state transition diagrams, function refinement
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trees, transaction-use tables and function-entity type tables.
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* Unified Modeling Language (UML) editors for static structure diagrams,
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use-case diagrams, activity diagrams, state charts, message sequence
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diagrams, collaboration diagrams, component diagrams and deployment
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diagrams (the first three and last three UML editors are functional
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* Miscellaneous editors such as for JSD (process structure and network
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diagrams), recursive process graphs and transaction decomposition tables.
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TCM supports constraint checking for single documents (e.g. name duplication
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and cycles in is-a relationships). TCM distinguishes built-in constraints
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(of which a violation cannot even be attempted) from immediate constraints
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(of which an attempted violation is immediately prevented) and soft
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constraints (against which the editor provides a warning when it checks
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the drawing). As of version 2.10 TCM supports hierarchic graphs, so that it
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can handle for example hierarchic statecharts. Features to be added later
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include constraint checking across documents and executable models.
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* Features of this software
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TCM is available as source code or as binaries for various Unix platforms.
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There exist binaries for Solaris sparc, Linux i386, FreeBSD, HP-UX, SGI IRIX,
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IBM AIX and OSF/1. Solaris and Linux are the platforms on which we develop
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and for which the most recent binaries are available.
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All editors share a common Motif user interface. Instead of Motif you can
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use the GPL Motif-clone Lesstif or OpenMotif (preferably).
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The TCM editors output the TCM file format, PostScript, Encapsulated
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PostScript, PNG and the Fig format (with either LaTeX- or PostScript fonts).
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The Fig format can be further processed by XFIG.
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Although TCM is initially developed as software specification tool, it is
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also widely used for drawing arbitrary graph-like diagrams or tables.
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* About the TCM project.
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TCM was jointly built at the Faculty of Computer Science of the University
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of Twente and the Division of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Vrije
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Universiteit Amsterdam. TCM was initiated by Roel Wieringa and Frank Dehne;
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Frank Dehne left the Vrije Universiteit December 2000.
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All further development has moved to the University of Twente.
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Currently the following persons are involved in this project:
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* David Jansen (programming for Ph.D. research)
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* Roel Wieringa (project supervisor),
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(http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~roelw)
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* Henk van de Zandschulp (distribution management, programming and
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(http://is.cs.utwente.nl/personnel/newsigs/sighenkz.html)
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Some of the requirements engineering and software specification methods
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supported by TCM are discussed in:
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Requirements Engineering: Frameworks for Understanding
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Wiley 1996, ISBN 0 471 95884 0.
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The UML diagram techniques are discussed in:
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Design Methods for Reactive Systems: Yourdon, Statemate and the UML
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Department of Computer Science, University of Twente, 2000.
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* How to obtain the latest version of TCM.
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The source code of TCM is now publically available, under the GNU
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public license. See the file COPYING in the TCM ftp distribution directory.
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TCM runs on Unix systems with X Windows. The TCM ftp site is
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ftp://ftp.cs.utwente.nl/pub/tcm and it's mirrored to
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ftp://ftp.cs.vu.nl/pub/tcm. The TCM home page is
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http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~tcm. The TCM distributions are downloadable via
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the web page http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~tcm/software.html.
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The TCM software consists of a collection of graphical editors, running on
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Unix systems with X Windows. See the CHANGELOG for the differences with
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The most recent TCM distributions can always be found via this web page.
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The primary FTP site for TCM distributions is ftp.cs.utwente.nl:/pub/tcm.
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This site has a mirror at ftp.cs.vu.nl:/pub/tcm.
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TCM is distributed under the GNU Public License. For the exact copyright
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text of TCM see the file COPYING.
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Distributions with the source code, with Solaris binaries and Linux
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binaries are available from the TCM ftp site. Alternatively, check
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out http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~tcm/software.html for what other
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distributions currently exist.
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For Linux both normal tar.gz distributions are made as well as RPM
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packages. Note that the Linux binary distributions need glibc 2.1 (glibc
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2.0 or libc5 do not work). The Linux distribution with 'statmotif' in its
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name has the Motif library statically linked with the executables. The
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distributions with 'dynmotif' need a Motif library on your system with
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the version number mentioned after 'dynmotif'.
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Instead of Motif you can also use Lesstif (www.lesstif.org) or
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preferably OpenMotif (http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/).
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To download a distribution, put your FTP session into binary mode (type
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'binary', without the quotes), get a distribution file and quit the FTP
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* Installation of TCM.
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To install a binary distribution (a tar.gz file) unzip and untar the TCM
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tar xzvfp 'distribution'.tar.gz or
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gunzip -c 'distribution'.tar.gz | tar xvfp - or
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zcat 'distribution'.tar.gz | tar xvfp -
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This creates a new directory named tcm-'version'/ in the current directory
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with the TCM binaries and documentation.
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For the remainder of the installation process see the file INSTALL that
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is included in the distribution.
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* Contact Information
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You can request to subscribe to the TCM mailing-list
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tcm-users@cs.utwente.nl by sending an empty message to
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tcm-users-request@cs.utwente.nl.
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Alternatively, messages that are not intended for the 'entire TCM
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community' can be sent to tcm@cs.utwente.nl.
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Letters and other physical objects can be sent to:
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Department of Computer Science
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Subdepartment Information Systems
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