LAS VEGAS, Jan. 9, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Altia and NXP have come together to deliver a showcase that is truly extraordinary – a full automotive eCockpit dashboard with Altia-generated cluster, radio, climate, IVI and entertainment HMIs driven by a single i.MX 8QuadMax applications processor. The dashboard incorporates advanced, never-before-seen, variable geometry LCDs for each display, works with NXP car audio platform, incorporates Smart Eye Driver Monitoring AI system and is Amazon Alexa voice control enabled. A 3D-printed custom dash which houses the hardware and displays completes the vision. Unveiled by NXP at CES 2019, this ultramodern automotive cockpit – featuring Altia 3D in every display segment – is designed to impress.

"Altia's customers are looking toward the future to deliver innovative designs across the cockpit. NXP's powerful i.MX 8 processor makes it possible to design graphics of the future for connected cockpits of today," stated Lynwood Stanley, Altia Vice President of Services. "With the help of NXP's tools and hardware combined with variable geometry displays as a canvas, the Altia Engineering Services team brought a truly exciting automotive concept to life."

The NXP eCockpit dash is composed of three screen regions. A 1980 x 720 region hosts the instrument cluster and a 1080 x 1920 region hosts the climate and radio HMIs. A 3840 x 720 region which is designated for the front seat passenger hosts the IVI and entertainment HMIs. These HMI systems are running on a combination of Linux and Android.

The NXP i.MX 8QuadMax applications processor offers a powerful platform for driving the multi-domain functionality of this eCockpit showcase. This NXP platform comes equipped with two Arm® Cortex®-A72 cores, four Arm Cortex-A53 cores, two Arm Cortex-M4F cores plus 64-bit LPDDR4/DDR4 DRAM. All the Altia-generated graphics for the showcase are powered by a single i.MX 8 Cortex-A CPU which leverages both on-board GPUs to drive these massive displays.

Each variable geometry display hosts stunning content necessary to inform and entertain the driver and passenger. The instrument cluster includes gauges and ADAS screens with the vehicle moving through a 3D map scene. The map animation syncs with the passenger display, driving a cursor on the immense expanded map view. The passenger can interact with the map via touch to guide a camera gimbal, allowing for an expansive view of the vehicle's environment. The distinctively shaped head unit display consists of cover flow two physical knobs to control climate.

Altia's expert Engineering Services team employed Altia's user interface development tool suite to develop and deploy this showcase for the NXP i.MX 8. Altia's artists created 2D graphics with Adobe® Photoshop® and 3D graphics in Autodesk® Maya® and then imported those assets into Altia Design, a WYSIWYG user interface editor. The Advanced 3D capabilities available for Altia Design were used to further develop the 3D assets – including creation of cool animations and embedded-friendly textures – directly within the Altia editor. The HMI models with seamlessly-integrated 2D and 3D content were further developed and tested. Altia DeepScreen was then used to generate C code for the i.MX 8 processor. The Altia DeepScreen target for NXP i.MX 8 is carefully architected to deliver the best performance of HMI graphics on hardware while using the least amount of memory.

"Built with advanced media processing, secure domain partitioning and innovative vision processing, the i.MX 8 and 8X families of applications processors revolutionize multiple display automotive applications and graphics-rich industrial systems," said Ron Martino, Vice President and General Manager, i.MX Applications Processor Product Line at NXP. "With Altia's proven HMI design tools and services, customers are able to take full advantage of the hardware architecture and features of the i.MX 8 and 8X processor families and deliver an optimal and visually-stunning, eCockpit experience."

About Altia…
Altia is a software company that provides concept-to-code graphical user interface design and development tools and professional engineering services. Our GUI editor, Altia Design, offers development teams the capability to implement a model-based development process for clear 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 healthcare monitors. Our Professional Engineering Services Team is works with product development companies worldwide at all phases of the embedded HMI development lifecycle. Our mission is to get the best automotive, medical and consumer interfaces into production on any 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 http://www.altia.com or email Email Contact.
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SOURCE Altia