Data Display Description Conversions to eXtensible Markup Language (XML)

Data display languages are used by the US Air Force for test and evaluation of aircraft and space systems. The need to translate between data display languages arises especially in joint service programs when applications need to be reused, migrated orshared. It is important to use a common representation of the data in this conversion problem to reduce translator development efforts and provide a centralized repository that encourages data display reuse. XML is the perfect basis for developing a commonrepresentation to standardize the storage of data displays and create a knowledge base.Because translation between data displays can be complex, a first activity of the project will be to look at the languages that need to be supported and study the feasibility of the converters. If the conversion system is feasible, the commonrepresentation of data display will be defined. Doing so, Trident Systems will explore different conversion strategies, and implement the most appropriate one. Specifically, we propose a two-step approach to separate data access from mapping andtransformation between languages. To further enforce interoperatibility and leverage existing tools and expertise, Trident suggests using SVG - an XML-based vector graphics format - as a basis for the common XML format.This work will generate the infrastructure of a general-purpose data display language translator based on XML. The conversion system will be centered around a common representation of data displays in XML, and centralize the existing interfaces in a commonrepository. This will encourage reuse of existing data displays, and therefore make data display-based systems much easier and faster to build especially in joint service programs