Software engineering goals
The software system engineering pursued the following goals:
- maximize the interactivity of users with the car
(the client establishes a strong bound with the vehicle by directly exploring various features and acting on its interactive parts) - easy and fast usage
(destination based ergonomics criteria, colour changes and 3D options are displayed very fast) - make itself available on several means of presentation
(Internet, CDs/DVDs, local PC application, touch-screens, showroom plasma screens etc) - stability
(the chosen technology is reliable for all the targeted platforms) - expandability, flexibility
(easily add new software modules packed with new features, easy replacing of current modules with improved ones, adding new 3D models as easy (and therefore cheap) as possible) - maximize exposure by offering higher performance (for high polygon count) with lower system requirements
(the application runs well even on older systems - this is achieved by : 1) optimization of 3D models and code 2) automatic adaptation by dropping of features with high system requirements to keep it running on older systems) - interfacing with the existing sales system and also including marketing tools
(ability to order, store client preferences, track the sales process, direct advertising areas, "tell a friend" tool etc)
The current version features a web-start ability for online integration. All online communication is done in exactly the same manner as a browser application would do. This helps it integrate into the sales system and also keeps it free of in-browser performance losses. Browser embedded application can be developed on demand, however be aware that at the time being the technology is pretty unstable for this purpose, causes significant performance losses and cannot sustain the high interactivity of such a complex application. However, we also continue to watch the development of browser embedding technologies for 3D with interest because they have a promising evolution.
