Formal methods in the development of premo

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC24 are developing a standard for the presentation of multimedia objects, called Premo (Presentation Environments for Multimedia Objects). Premo is a multipart standard, the most well-defined parts of which, at the time of writing, are at the stage of Committee Draft. This paper describes how formal description techniques are being used in the development of the Premo standard, shadowing the development of the standard itself. The approach taken uses a combination of Z and Object-Z. The motivation and merits of this approach are discussed, and illustrated with a description of some fundamental concepts of the Premo object model.