Reverse Engineering Tool

Copyright 2026, Milwaukee School of Engineering

This is a tool developed by an SDL team (under direction of Drs. Flynn and Hasker) to generate readable UML diagrams from student projects. The goal is both to streamline workflows for students and faculty and help with learning the key elements of UML class diagram notation. This is an alpha version of the project; we know there are a number of issues to improve, but would like general usability feedback. Please send that feedback to Dr. Hasker.

See the bottom of this page for an example diagram and licensing.

The system is available in various forms as listed below. See the README for further details.

reveng-desktop.msi (Windows Installer): MSI installer for the Reverse Engineering Tool desktop app that will load projects from a folder and display a class diagram. This is not signed, so Windows will show a box saying that you are being protected from running this installer. You can click on the "more details" link so you can click on "run anyway". If you are installing an updated version, you will need to use Settings to uninstall the previous version first.
Intellij Plugin (reveng-intellij-plugin.zip); to install: open IntelliJ, navigate to Settings | Plugins | Install Plugin from Disk, and then select the downloaded reveng-intellij-plugin.zip file.
reveng-desktop.jar (JAR for desktop app); this will run on any platform, but does not install as an application. It can be useful for Mac and Linux users. Run the JAR file using Java21:
```
        java -jar reveng-desktop.jar
```
You will need to install Graphviz as well.
reveng-cli.jar (reveng-cli.jar): command-line version of the tool. See the README for usage instructions, including install Graphviz.
reveng-desktop-linux.tar.gz: Desktop app for Linux. You will need to install Graphviz separately. Extract it with the command tar -xzf reveng-desktop-linux.tar.gz.
reveng-cli-linux.tar.gz: Command line interface for Linux. You will need to install Graphviz separately. Extract it with the command tar -xzf reveng-cli-linux.tar.gz.

This version supports both Java and C++.

As an example, the following diagram was generated using the command-line tool from the WeatherStation example used in SWE 2410:

License: This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0). See the LICENSE file for more information.