reverse engineering – recent advances and applications - OpenLibra

X Preface
answering specific questions on the function, structure, and behavior of the artifact
under study. Secondly, new data sources, such as 3D scanners, cell microarrays, and a
large variety of sensors, has made new types of data sources available from which
detailed insights about mechanical and living structures can be extracted.
Given the above factors, reverse engineering applications, techniques, and tools have
shown a strong development and diversification. However, in the same time, the types
of questions asked by end users and stakeholders have become increasingly complex.
For example, while a decade ago the reverse engineering of a software application
would typically imply extracting the static structure of an isolated code base of tens of
thousands of lines of code written in a single programming language, current software
reverse engineering aims at extracting structural, behavioral, and evolutionary
patterns from enterprise applications of millions of lines of code written in several
programming languages, running on several machines, and developed by hundreds of
individuals over many years. Similarly, reverse engineering the geometric and
mechanical properties of physical shapes has evolved from the extraction of coarse
surface models to the generation of part-whole descriptions of complex articulated
shapes with the submillimeter accuracy required for manufacturing processes. This
has fostered the creation of new reverse engineering techniques and tools.
This book gives an overview of recent advances in reverse engineering techniques,
tools, and application domains. The aim of the book is, on the one hand, to provide the
reader with a comprehensive sample of the possibilities that reverse engineering
currently offers in various application domains, and on the other hand to highlight the
current research-level and practical challenges that reverse engineering techniques and
tools are faced.
Structure of this book
To provide a broad view on reverse engineering, the book is divided into three parts:
software reverse engineering, reverse engineering shapes, and reverse engineering in
medical and life sciences. Each part contains several chapters covering applications,
techniques, and tools for reverse engineering relevant to specific use-cases in the
respective application domain. An overview of the structure of the book is given below.
Part 1: Software Reverse Engineering
In part 1, we look at reverse engineering the function, structure, and behavior of large
software-intensive applications. The main business driver behind software reverse
engineering is the increased effort and cost related to maintainting existing software
applications and designing new applications that wish to reuse existing legacy software.
As this cost increases, getting detailed information on the structure, run-time behavior,
and quality attributes of existing software applications becomes highly valuable.
In Chapter 1, Kienle et al. Give a comprehensive overview of reverse engineering tools
and techniques applied to embedded software. Apart from detailing the various pro’s