Graphical programming support

Dear Sirs 
 I am a member of a team managed by Prof. Gianantonio 
Magnani  of Politecnico di Milano.
 
 Our team works on control systems 
for  robotics and related fields. 
 
I am using OROCOS since release 
0.16 and  I think that OROCOS is very powerful,
but beginners have to 
do strong  effort to acquire the knowledge necessary to use the 
framework.
This  prevents a wider diffusion of this powerful and useful 
tool.
There are  users that don't have a deep knowledge of C++ and 
don't need to develop 
new components, often they only need to 
concentrate on assembling  control blocks already available.
 
Our 
group is thinking about a  friendly user interface, which should allow 
this category of users to 
build control systems from available blocks: 
controller, sensors,  kinematics chain and so on.
 
This user interface 
in our idea should expose component as graphical blocks that can be 
dragged 
on canvas and connected each other in a graphical way. 
Users 
should only specify relevant parameter for each block.
The interface 
should generate the correct C++ code based on OROCOS framework from 
the 
raphical model.
The goal of this interface is to avoid the effort 
of writing C++ code to user focused on control.
Our goal is to build a 
tool that allows faster and easier development of control system and 
to 
assemble a library of components.
 
Another field of interest is 
the definition of robotic systems, like kinematical chain, using a 3D 
cad 
like Blender.
We are thinking about the development of a second 
tool that should generate the C++ code
for a complete robot, based on 
OROCOS framework.
This tool should use a 3D modeler to define the 
kinematical chain of the robot and a graphical interface to complete 
the 
model with information about sensors, controller and drivers etc. 
 
This information is really succinct but I hope can give an idea of 
our goals 
and we are very interested in your opinion about these 
activities.
 
Best regards.

Tank you in advance.

Gianpaolo Rizzi