Assigning semantics to graphical concrete syntaxes

Graphical editors that are used in the domain of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) follow specific conventions to denote relations between elements such as edges and containments. However, existing research suggests that there are other visual aspects that can better encode these relations such as the shape, the position and colour of the elements. In this paper, we propose the use of these physical variables to denote information regarding attributes and relations between elements. Running examples of DSLs in which such paradigms can be of benefit are presented.