How to construct maximal conflict free processes from Petri net simulations

Partial-order semantics of a Petri net can be defined either by the set of (conflict-free) processes or by one single (and coherent) branching process. Processes are compact and usable for visualization but their systematic simulative construction is difficult and ineffective. Branching processes are an efficient data structure for storing simulation data but tend to become complex and not suitable for visualization. This contribution describes a two-step simulation method to exploit the advantages of both representations and presents an algorithm to construct the set of maximal processes embedded in a given branching process.