Thread: Good name for Car-PC system?

Thanks Hdale, I have a while to go before I will be in a place to go there since I am in a busy semester and have other promised projects I am behind on but once I am familiar with how OM is built I would seriously consider doing this if people were willing to pay for the development kit.

I am building an x86 machine now but I also have a Freescale quad core 1ghz 1gig ARM cortex9 development board that I can put Linux, Android, QNX or windows embedded on. (Not RT yet but who knows.)

But I don't want to be accused of hijacking this thread so I will leave it there.

Also that arndale board is a new board I haven't heard of before. Might be worth looking into.

Originally Posted by LasseO

Thank you for your input!

You're right, Front End would be a better description for it.

Centrafuse works in images, all the UI is based on static images which can only resize in all directions. So, no matter how big your screen might be, the UI will just scale up in size, which is not very efficient, and looks very bad! Our system is build from the ground in WPF, which enables use of scale much better, as everything is rendered runtime. Take CFs music screen, only 3.. THREE! songs are visible in the list, no matter how big your screen is, that is simply horrific design! All buttons scale too, buttons don't need to get bigger just because your screen is, therefor, you get room for more content..

I REALLY like your idea of using mythology, we have done a lot of research in finding a name through that, because it has a meaning too, like Icarus!

Icarus also breaks down as a logical acronym. I have always been fascinated with mythology.
I've been looking into using WPF as well. I've been trying to learn C# but so far, I've been limited to dabbling in Processing for use with the Arduino. I'm working on a 4x4 Inclinometer that I wrote in Processing that I am trying to convert to C#. I really like the more dynamic aspects of WPF. It would definitely benefit those who have screens larger than 7 inches or run screens in a vertical orientation. I would like to see the ability to use buttons with active data displayed on them, such as a critical parameter that would act as sort of an idiot light. Clicking the button would take you to the plugin responsible for displaying enhanced data. Or a Media Player button that changes the icon shown based on what source is currently being played. One thing I have been trying to figure out with Centrafuse is how to remove the media control buttons like play, FF, RW, Pause, Volume, etc but still allow them to be easily accessible by touching a region of the screen and having a control panel slide into view, and disappear when done. You don't have to SEE them all of the time to have them ready for easy use.

I'm a graphic designer and I've had the concept of "less is more" driven into my head until it hurts. Too much info on the screen can be distracting while in a moving vehicle. Another idea that I had was to have a main screen that scales based on whether the vehicle is stationary or moving. When moving, show the bare essentials with easy to find and understand buttons but when stationary, expand the display to be more complex and enhanced. I can't wait to see a thread on this Front End's development and progress.

Originally Posted by locs4dayz

Originally Posted by mrwesth

Give it a voice and call it KITT

HaHaHa.....too funny....LOL

It was, back in 2003

Originally Posted by redheadedrod

Shhh... I am doing that with my Truck but I am using OM as my Front end... :P
Seriously.. (Lets just say it will have more than a simple PC... )

But to stay on track...

With the dozens of front ends out there already why start from scratch like this?
I have considered doing this myself but with open source projects such as Open Mobile what do you think you can do better than isn't already being done?

It would make much more sense to get involved with something already in existence. If you are planning on building something you can sell then you really need to make something that will work across more than one platform. Building something that is windows only puts you in a decent field where you have the best hardware support but really. If you are building something new and exciting then you really need to be something different. Oh and if you are charging for it then you will want to come in under the cost of Centrafuse or damn close to it.

There are numerous FE's currently available. I haven't had the time to get really involved with OM yet but it is just one example of a nice free FE. It is currently under development but has some features that are not found in many other places and is free. And will eventually work with Linux once one of us has the time to get it to run. So like I said, why develop your own when there are many out there already? Are you planning to make money off of it?

"Mobile Dream" could be one...
Rodney

The reason to start from scratch is because we can, and WILL do a better job than anything out there. Take for an example Road/Riderunner, it's opensource, but VERY badly coded when it comes to functionality. It relies on i don't know many 3'rd party programs to work, like Winamp, VLC and so on.. We are building our product from scratch, to make a new platform which doesn't rely on 3'rd party software and uses the newest technology. Centrafuse uses a BUNCH of 3'rd party SDKs to work, like BASS audio, we have based our media play on good opensource and therefor free functionality, we can change if we want to. The only 3'rd party libraries we need is for Navigation and maybe Bluetooth. Besides that, it's based on images and WinForms, which is not very suitable for making a good touch based scalable Front End..

I think that the Windows platform is a good platform for this kind of stuff, especially now when Windows 8 is out, which is really good for touch based devices with better touch support, EFI bios, "Metro" etc. True that the product would be really great if it ran on "any" platform, but the developing cost of that would elevate to the end user.

I can for sure say, that out product could be cheaper than CF, no doubt about that.

I don't think anyone would mind paying Centrafuse prices if the darn thing worked as it should and weren't such a big headache.

Originally Posted by XSiveJeff

Icarus also breaks down as a logical acronym. I have always been fascinated with mythology.
I've been looking into using WPF as well. I've been trying to learn C# but so far, I've been limited to dabbling in Processing for use with the Arduino. I'm working on a 4x4 Inclinometer that I wrote in Processing that I am trying to convert to C#. I really like the more dynamic aspects of WPF. It would definitely benefit those who have screens larger than 7 inches or run screens in a vertical orientation. I would like to see the ability to use buttons with active data displayed on them, such as a critical parameter that would act as sort of an idiot light. Clicking the button would take you to the plugin responsible for displaying enhanced data. Or a Media Player button that changes the icon shown based on what source is currently being played. One thing I have been trying to figure out with Centrafuse is how to remove the media control buttons like play, FF, RW, Pause, Volume, etc but still allow them to be easily accessible by touching a region of the screen and having a control panel slide into view, and disappear when done. You don't have to SEE them all of the time to have them ready for easy use.

I'm a graphic designer and I've had the concept of "less is more" driven into my head until it hurts. Too much info on the screen can be distracting while in a moving vehicle. Another idea that I had was to have a main screen that scales based on whether the vehicle is stationary or moving. When moving, show the bare essentials with easy to find and understand buttons but when stationary, expand the display to be more complex and enhanced. I can't wait to see a thread on this Front End's development and progress.

Yeah WPF really does the job well. I am a developer on the project and we have a WPF/Blend designer who does the design and layout.

We have spend many hours designing our interface and came up with, that the layout of Centrafuse is actually really good, most of the time. Our product will look alot like CF when it comes to layout, but with significant differences.

I will take the liberty to post this screenshot. But bear in mind, that this is still VERY early, nothing is complete!

Note: The image may seem very dark, but the screens in a car is often much brighter and displays colors differently.

Feel free to comment!

As said, nothing is completed. Many things will still change.

To ask some of the questions that might be:

- The colors WILL be changeable from settings RUNTIME
- Background will be customizeable
- The button locations can be customized
- The Applications button will open a new screen with a list of applications, much like on a phone
- The sound controls (like the slider) is only for testing, it is for now just at standard slider control
- Media duration and position will be visible
- WIFI, BT, OBD etc status will be visible

We are currently supporting the following Audio formats:
Wav,mp3, aif, flac, ogg and Wma..

I like !

Originally Posted by pierrotm777

I like !

Thank you for your feedback