Scale models and rapid prototyping

  • Authors:

  • Mark Weiser

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Maryland, College Park, MD

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the workshop on Rapid prototyping
  • Year:
  • 1982

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Abstract

A prototype of a system is a model of that system which sacrifices accuracy in some areas (such as ease of change) for a quick check of the system's function. A prototype is therefore one kind of scale model-- a model accurate in some ways but inaccurate in others. Three different ways to build scale models of software correspond to the accurate modeling of the following three aspects of a software system: user interface, functionality, and performance. A prototype accurate in one of these areas will usually deliberately ignore accuracy in the other two. Specific scaling of results in a software scale model will be necessary depending upon what aspect has been ignored.