1. A system for the development of a software-controlled Lab-on-a-chip (“LoC”) device, the system comprising: a specification language file for specifying LoC element attributes of elements and interconnections among elements, the specification file determining a model for an LoC device; an authoring/editing tool for creating and/or editing the specification file; an operating language script for controlling the operation of a modeled LoC device; a control design tool for creating and/or editing the operational language script; a numerical simulation system for producing a real-time numerical simulation of the operation of the model LoC device; a data visualization system for creating real-time visualizations of data from the numerical simulation; wherein the authoring/editing tool, control design tool, numerical simulation system, and data visualization system are integrated into a common system sharing the specification language file and operational language script.