Decreasing Time to Market with Simulation Graphics and Graphics Code Generation

Altia provides embedded systems graphics software, including virtual prototyping and graphics code generation, for use in the automotive industry.

Virtual prototyping with Altia Design provides a means for the early evaluation of a new product's specification. The software, a graphics development environment, enables users to create custom, interactive virtual prototypes of the devices they are building. With such graphical simulations, engineers, managers, marketers, and even potential customers can easily test the look and functionality of the proposed product and offer feedback before the later stages of development when changes are difficult and expensive to implement. Because errors are recognized and corrected early in the process, prototyping significantly shortens the iterative cycles of product development and results in better product specifications. Not only do manufacturers bring new products to market faster, but prototyping also improves the quality, relevance, and applicability of those products.

When a new product contains a display screen as part of its user interface, Altia DeepScreen can automatically generate deployable graphics code for that display. After building the screen graphics in the Altia Design prototype, DeepScreen automatically generates C source code for those graphics. This code is complete and ready for use in the actual product. Significant benefits of this development approach include time savings and flexibility. Graphics code generation requires a fraction of the time typically spent writing graphics code by hand. It also provides the flexibility to implement last-minute specification changes by simply returning to the prototype, editing the graphics, and regenerating the code. Manufacturers can even switch to a different hardware platform or real-time operating system in minutes by simply selecting the new target and regenerating the code. With the increasing popularity of embedded displays in automotive infotainment or navigation systems, efficiency in graphics development becomes critical to success in a fast-paced marketplace.

Altia's easy-to-use tools make virtual prototyping and graphics code generation painless pieces of the product development process. Users build graphical prototypes in Altia Design, either by creating their own custom graphics, importing bitmapped images, or utilizing prebuilt library components. Animation, stimulus, and control are then applied to the graphics-all without programming. This transforms the graphics into the interactive prototypes that look and behave like the actual product. For complete simulations of the new product's logic and behavior, Altia offers prebuilt connections to leading system, control, software, and hardware-in-the-loop simulation products. Virtual prototypes also give engineering teams the portability and distribution needed to collaborate on projects over multiple locations and platforms through Altia's royalty-free runtime and Web plug-in.

After creating the display screen graphics in Altia Design, users simply select those graphics, choose their target options, and use DeepScreen to generate the C code. They may choose to first generate the code to run on their host machine for initial integration and testing of the graphics code with the product's logic and control code. When this integration is refined, DeepScreen can regenerate the code for the target system. Currently, DeepScreen directly supports the Windows, Windows CE, embedded Linux, QNX, and VxWorks operating systems along with the x86, StrongARM, Hitachi, and MIPS processors. Other target operating systems and hardware platforms will be directly supported over time as driven by customer demand. Code size varies, depending upon the type of graphics created, but it is usually small, efficient, and high performance.

For additional information about Altia's products and services for embedded systems development, please visit http://www.altia.com or send e-mail inquiries to info@altia.com.

 

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