Resources Industries: Industrial

Altia Announces DeepScreen GUI Code Running on Infineon XMC7200 MCU

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

Altia today announces that Altia DeepScreen-generated graphics code is running on an Infineon XMC7200 32-bit microcontroller (MCU). With a rich history for success deploying embedded GUIs for production embedded devices, Altia and Infineon can now offer the capability to deliver high-impact, optimized graphics for industrial devices like EV charging stations, electric motorbikes and other IoT applications.

The Infineon XMC7200D-E272K is designed to meet the requirements for industrial applications—and is a true programmable embedded system-on-chip, integrating two 350-MHz Arm® Cortex®-M7 as the primary application processor and one 100-MHz Arm® Cortex®-M0+. This MCU includes up to 8 MB flash and 1 MB SRAM. It also includes an embedded multi-media card (eMMC) interface for easily extending flash memory.

“Infineon’s XMC7200 MCUs offer best-in-class compute performance, equipped with dual Arm® Cortex® M7 cores, flash memory up to 8 MB and many other value-added features for high-end industrial applications, supporting next-generation embedded displays and advanced graphics,” said Lisa Kamp, Software Product Marketing Manager, Infineon Technologies. “With Altia’s highly efficient graphics code, this product pairing enables our customers to deliver rich embedded GUIs for powerful and cost-effective applications, all enabled directly within the ModusToolbox™ software ecosystem.”

Altia is keenly suited to delivering embedded graphics solutions to memory efficient MCUs like the Infineon XMC7200 series. The Altia Binary Asset Manager is employed to trim design graphics to make efficient use of memory. Runtime font engines are included to optimize text shaping and text kerning. Altia’s code generator employs efficient software rendering for speedy GUI content even on MCUs without graphics acceleration or a display controller. Because Altia’s code generation solutions do not rely on hardware acceleration for graphics, Altia-generated code can be deployed to any hardware—even applications without operating systems.

“We are pleased to expand our code generation support to include Infineon’s MCUs. Our partnership began years ago in the automotive sector with the earliest generation of their TRAVEO™ products. Today, we continue to partner with Infineon in automotive with support for the second generation of TRAVEO™, the T2G series—and we are extending our reach to industrial applications with the PSoC™ 6 and the XMC7200,” stated Jason Williamson, Altia’s Vice President of Marketing. “The smart architecture of our DeepScreen code generators enables high impact, small footprint GUIs for any hardware.”

For more information about designing, developing and deploying embedded GUIs for the Infineon XMC7200 series, visit www.altia.com/get-started.

About Altia 

Altia is a software company that provides graphical user interface design and development tools that can be used from concept to final production code. Our GUI editor, Altia Design, offers development teams the capability to implement a model-based development process enabling clear team communication and accelerated user interface development. Our code generator, Altia DeepScreen, supports a vast range of low- to high-powered processors from a variety of industry-leading silicon providers. Altia generates pure C source code that is optimized to take full advantage of hardware resources. Graphics code generated by Altia is driving millions of displays worldwide – from automotive instrument clusters, HUDs and radios to thermostats, washing machines and medical devices.

Our mission is to get the best automotive, medical and consumer interfaces into production in the shortest time on the lowest cost hardware.

Altia was founded in 1991. Its customers include automotive OEMs and Tier 1s like Continental Automotive, Denso, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Honda, Renault, Magneti Marelli, Nippon Seiki, Valeo, Visteon and more – plus leading consumer device manufacturers like Electrolux, Whirlpool, NordicTrack and many others.

For more information about Altia, visit www.altia.com or email [email protected].

Follow Altia on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

How Game Design Tools Are Modernizing Automotive Cockpits

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

Video games are raising the bar for what’s possible for digital experiences, incorporating beautiful design elements like 3D graphics to create detailed images that delight consumers. Automotive HMI designers are trying to push the envelope with their cockpit display graphics, designing similar elements into their instrument clusters, infotainment systems and other car displays. We’ve started to see graphics created with Unity and Unreal Engine, for example, in automotive applications. But car displays aren’t video games—nor should they be treated that way. So how can OEMs deliver these powerful 3D scenes into their next generation HMIs?

Altia is the solution that bridges the gap between gaming software and a production HMI, enabling designers and developers to deliver gaming 3D design elements into their automotive cockpit displays.

Importing the Artist’s Vision

Some premium car brands already use expensive processors that can handle 3D gaming graphics. Automotive display designers want to offer beautiful HMIs for the entire brand fleet, so they’re challenged with finding creative ways to bring that same premium graphical experience to hardware better suited to mid- and entry-level vehicles.

There’s also the matter of complying with NHTSA requirements and ISO 26262. Gaming graphics companies are too busy enhancing their software for gaming applications to be concerned with meeting the many compliance and functional safety standards involved in automotive applications. An automotive-focused software partner who can leverage gaming graphics in HMI designs is necessary to accommodate these powerful 3D elements and mission-critical needs.

Altia helps make the artist’s vision fit within the automotive cockpit by importing graphics from these powerful gaming graphics software tools into HMI designs, thus enabling slick special effects, 3D, photo-realistic scenes and sophisticated lighting. Case in point: Altia’s flexible ecosystem architecture allowed Cadillac to leverage Unreal Engine in the automotive display without losing sight of automotive functional safety requirements.

Like other popular graphics tools and 3D authoring tools, Unity and Unreal have become part of the new path to embedded GUI success. Like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya and Blender, game engines empower artists to create better graphics faster. Altia Design brings together content from these various tools to develop an integrated solution.

Getting to Embedded Hardware

Unreal Engine and Unity can do a lot for your designers, but they can’t get them all the way into the automotive cockpit. These large engines are designed to run on gaming PCs, so they don’t have to be efficient enough to run on the embedded hardware used in automotive applications.

The two companies are busy serving the needs of the massive gaming market, so they don’t have the time to be focused on architecting their technology to accommodate automotive OEMs. Fortunately, Altia makes it possible to import graphical assets from cutting-edge 3D gaming software and make them viable for embedded GUI teams by:

  • Scaling down assets to run on hardware with fewer resources and better performance.
  • Rendering scenes more efficiently than native Unity or Unreal applications to account for the differences between a gaming PC and embedded hardware.
  • Adding rendering capabilities and features as embedded hardware improves.

General Motors leveraged Altia’s scalability features for 3D gaming graphics to design some elements of the passenger display in the Cadillac LYRIQ.

Why Unity and Unreal Need Altia to Revolutionize Automotive Cockpits

Altia provides automotive OEMs with features they can’t get from Unity and Unreal alone:

  • MISRA compliance for robust code
  • ASPICE development
  • Functional safety
  • Government standards like boot time, PRNDL and other NHTSA standards

At the same time, Unity and Unreal use more RAM and Flash than is typically available for an automotive display. It takes a third party like Altia to meet boot time and other needs for automotive robustness. Altia renders more efficiently to save power and resources, which is especially important as the world moves toward EVs.

How Altia Works with Game Engines

Altia is the avenue through which automotive display designers can bring advanced assets like 3D graphics into the automotive cockpit. There are various ways in which Altia can engage with Unity, Unreal or any other graphic tool.

The partnership can be as simple as importing files into Altia Design and generating code with DeepScreen. Embedded GUI teams from automotive and beyond are already leveraging this method to bring assets from their favorite design tools into Altia Design and then add the animations or behaviors necessary for the GUI before generating the production code that gets those pixels from their artists into production devices.

Alternatively, designers can use the game engine to do all the rendering in the cockpit. Altia serves as the third party to handle concerns such as the fast boot splash screen and safety content.

It all comes down to what the automotive OEM wants. To transfer a design from a game engine to Altia, the team can export the design as an FBX file. Unity and Unreal import from different sources, so Altia needs to import in a similar fashion to take advantage of more capabilities of the tools. There are other options for high-end GUI designs, too. Some tools’ engines can import glTF files and support OpenGL ES, but it won’t run as well on embedded hardware. Altia takes half of the memory and flash.

The Good News for Automotive Display Designers

Fortunately, you don’t have to choose between modern HMIs and efficient rendering. You can do all your design on Unreal or Unity, then import your work into the Altia toolchain to make it safe and performant for production automotive applications. Unity and Unreal alone aren’t designed for automotive applications, but Altia can incorporate assets from these tools into HMI designs and bring these graphics to life in an automotive cockpit.

Vehicles are judged by many different standards. Increasingly, the quality of the automotive display is becoming one of the important components for drivers. Altia’s software and services help automotive display design teams make the most of the available technology to create HMIs that create a competitive advantage.

Now it’s possible to use assets from leading gaming design tools like Unity and Unreal in the automotive cockpit. Reach out today to Altia to learn more or get started.

9 Ways Your GUI Software Might Be Letting You Down

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

Open-source software is attractive because there is no or low financial barrier to entry. Unfortunately, it leaves the door open to other costs. Developing and maintaining the GUI is 50% more expensive when you hand-code it. Then you have to pay for a commercial license if you don’t want to make your code open source. What started as a cost-saving measure sets you up for a long and expensive development cycle.

Alternatively, your GUI application development environment can accelerate design and delivery, even allowing you to test your design on real hardware as you build. Every job is easier with the right development tool. While you might not see heavy specialization from an open-source tool, some solutions and resources are made specifically with embedded GUI projects in mind.

Choose an Embedded GUI Tool That Helps, Not Hurts

Creating a great product isn’t easy, which is why some parts of the process must be simple. Choosing the right technology can prevent a lot of headaches for your embedded GUI team. These nine considerations will help you avoid common pitfalls and stay on the road to a successful release.

1 – Smaller Memory Footprint

Until money is no object, cost will always be a factor in the product development process. When manufacturers use the least expensive hardware, the product’s retail price will be more attractive to consumers. Every opportunity to reduce RAM and Flash requirements by 50% will show up in the bottom line, and vice versa.

For example, the budget for a smart thermostat cannot accommodate a $100 processor. The cost savings can also become dramatic as displays grow in size or complexity. Thoughtful architecture yields efficient code, keeping the hardware budget down. The ability to fit within a small memory footprint is especially vital for the code generated by low-code and no-code solutions.

2 – Low-Code or No-Code GUI Design

A small army of GUI developers can find ways to minimize the memory footprint, but such labor isn’t especially cost-effective. Low-code and no-code GUI design technology reduces engineering costs and the need for handoffs

If you’re a designer, draw a circle and drop it where you want it. No one has to think about the formula of a circle or how each pixel should display. When designers can use the software themselves, there’s less back-and-forth with engineers before it goes into manufacturing.

3 – Intuitive Usability

Altia customers report that using the right GUI design stack helps get teams up and running several times faster than other GUI application development environments. Any of the following might get you to market with less support and less wasted time:

  • Integrations such as MathWorks Simulink
  • Generalized API for a low learning curve
  • Easy porting of the GUI onto hardware

It’s one thing to sit down and design without code. It’s another to get all the way to launch.

4 – Turnkey Support of Low- to High-Capability Hardware

Scalable and portable production programs make iterative growth easier to manage. Instead of reinventing the wheel, the same GUI design should be deployable repeatedly. One multinational oven manufacturer has been able to roll out new features one after another on top of the existing code base.

5 – Optimized Use of 3D Graphics

Working with 3D graphics can become a cost center instead of an added value if your GUI development environment isn’t up to the task. Rendering realistic representations in medical devices or similar products is a lofty target. It might be worth considering all of the following:

  • Workflow to import 3D graphics
  • Native 3D content capabilities
  • Control over aesthetic quality

3D graphics are only impressive and useful when they’re done correctly.

6 – 100% Pure Native Code: No Black Boxes, No Minimum Footprint

Solutions that require a “black box” runtime engine enforce a minimum footprint that isn’t always favorable. Such solutions must be prepared for every capability the graphic library allows, regardless of whether the design needs it.

You can’t take the black box apart and might need more expensive hardware to fit everything. It doesn’t make sense to pay for 3D capabilities if you’re building a simple thermostat interface with a knob and a number.

Black box solutions are especially risky in applications like medical device manufacturing and anything that will go in a heavy machine. If you need certification or submit to an inspection, you’ll unlikely get access to the black box. This means getting another company involved and all the delays that come with that.

7 – Cloud-Based Collaboration

Can your global team collaborate on a single target? The cloud wasn’t invented for GUI designers to work together from their homes on the exact same hardware-software stack—but smart companies are working with innovative solutions that make that happen. For example, consider the off-highway EV company testing its design on real, cloud-based hardware. It’s one more way to keep the project on schedule with remote team members or during a chip shortage.

8 – Better Product Support

It’s one thing to have a large user community and another to offer live support. What kinds of resources are available for monitoring and triaging? Connecting with a key development engineer will almost always be faster than customer service from a lower-tier engineer.

9 – End-to-End Engineering Services

When your team needs experience or hours to keep up, all kinds of professional engineering services are available. Some GUI design environments have connections with third-party partners or known consultants but no capacity to complete the project themselves. Compare that to a major surgical device maker that saves time and resources with turnkey product delivery.

Faster Time to Market

The nine top considerations for GUI development environments all serve a common goal: getting a product to market more efficiently. Simple workflows shorten the path to profit, conserve resources, and ultimately provide a superior user experience. If you want to learn more, our team is happy to show you how Altia stacks up in any or all of these categories.

How Altia CloudWare™ Helps Teams Overcome GUI Production Challenges

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

First, you wait weeks for your board to arrive so you can start building a new GUI. The designer works on it in your office in Denver, then ships it to the developer who works from home in Hawaii. After a shipping delay and then hours of time confirming the system set up in Hawaii matches the one in Denver, the developer finally gets the board and finishes programming. The developer ships the board to the product manager in Germany for review, but there’s a problem.

Somewhere between Hawaii and Germany, the development board flashed with the GUI design is lost in shipment. You can file a claim and get reimbursed for the cost of the board, but you are now back in line, waiting for a new supply to become available. Your product manager needs to sign off on the design before it can be ready for production—and, based on the lead time of your board, you know that you will miss the delivery date for your GUI.

If these headaches sound all too familiar, CloudWare™ offers good news for you. Here is how we solve seven critical challenges faced by embedded GUI teams.

1. Chip Shortage

Whether it takes weeks or months to get the specific chip you need to build your solution, the chip shortage has become a serious problem in recent years. CloudWare™ is helping GUI teams solve the chip shortage problem and meet production schedules. Rather than waiting until your chip comes in before you can move forward, you can get everything set up on CloudWare™.

Within five minutes, you can test your design on real hardware. You’ll have a real-time operating system and the toolchain to begin your design, development and evaluation. You don’t have to wait for weeks to test a chip anymore. CloudWare™ helps you find the appropriate chip and run a virtual machine to confirm your hardware selection before you place an order.

2. Supply Chain Issues

Even beyond the chip shortage, supply chain issues are making it harder to get what you need. If you can’t get a particular chip or get it in time, you might have to find a suitable replacement. Here at Altia, we pride ourselves on being able to run on any device, but you shouldn’t have to take our word for it.

CloudWare™ lets you confirm that your design works on other chips similar to the one you originally wanted. Whenever you want to try new hardware, you can access the CloudWare™ portal to test your design on hardware, and then work within the platform from start of project all the way to go-to-market (GTM). This also makes for a much more collaborative development environment.

3. Distributed Teams

The days of getting everyone together in the same office are long gone at most companies, which is creating challenges. Your remote designer in Hawaii might have a different board configuration than what you’ll use in production. When you work in the cloud, everyone works with the same board.

Stakeholders from all over the world can work together in real-time, accelerating collaboration. The product manager can see the GUI as it’s built, so no one ends up surprised that the design is blue instead of green. You also don’t have to ship boards from Hawaii to Germany anymore (and risk the board getting lost or bricked in the process).

4. Shipping Costs, Board Costs, Labor Costs

If you can build on a Raspberry Pi, ordering an extra board or two won’t break the bank. It’s a different story when your boards cost thousands of dollars each. CloudWare™ prevents you from having to buy several boards just to determine which is the right fit.

Then there’s the cost of shipping the boards. This cost shouldn’t be prohibitive if everything goes according to plan, but things happen. Boards get delayed, lost or damaged. Every delay or inefficient process is a waste of time, and time is money.

CloudWare™ is helping GUI teams get started while they wait on the boards they need for production. The time you spend waiting on shipments isn’t dead time because designers and developers can keep working. Not only can you try before you buy, but you can also design, test and validate before you have all of the hardware.

You can only start generating revenue after you produce a final product, and CloudWare™ gets you there faster (while managing costs along the way).

5. Disparate Hardware-Software Stacks

Just as distributed teams cause challenges, so do disparate hardware and software stacks. Finding the right setup often takes a while. There’s a lot of time spent reading documentation, experimenting with different setup processes and learning through trial and error. CloudWare™ helps eliminate a lot of effort, frustration and redundancy.

You get the right software with the right toolchains from the start, and everything is set up for you. There’s less time spent figuring out how to make your hardware and software solutions work together, which means more time building the best GUI possible. And your team can get straight into the core work more quickly.

Introducing CloudWare™!

Embedded GUI design and development teams find that CloudWare™ is easy to use. Most teams can use it without engineering services or additional support, especially if they have previous experience with embedded GUI development. Once Altia sets you up with a virtual machine through CloudWare™, you’re ready for self-service on our hosted hardware. It’s just like having the board in your office. Even better, you can test it now, with no upfront costs.

If your team needs a little more help getting up to speed, Altia is there to support you at every step. No matter where you get stuck, from ideation to GTM, we can help. This support is beneficial for teams without embedded GTM development experience. Maybe you only need a hand with the initial design or performance optimization. You can lean on our experts as much or as little as you need to throughout the process.

Are you ready to find new solutions to your GUI production challenges? Request a demo of Alita CloudWare™ today.

Designing and Deploying Embedded GUIs with Altia

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Texas Instruments | Chicago Location
475 N Martingale Rd #850, Schaumburg, IL 60173

Get to know Altia and experience the embedded software designed
into over 100 Million devices worldwide.

Join us for a half-day, hands-on workshop where you will learn how to create embedded GUIs using Altia Design.

Workshop Agenda:

  • Coffee and networking
  • Introduction to Altia
  • Embedded Industry Overview
  • GUI trends
  • Hands-on “Hello World” project
  • Lunch
  • Q&A
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