4-page Case Study - Posted 7/21/2008
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Maker of 3-D Software Broadens Customer Base by Developing New User Interface
Bunkspeed is an innovator in the three-dimensional-rendering software world. One of its core products, HyperDrive, enables companies to transform design and engineering data into realistic on-screen models. With the goal of evolving this product to next-generation status and opening up additional market opportunities, company developers built HyperDrive 2.0 on the Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.0 with Windows® Presentation Foundation. In addition, the team is taking advantage of the capabilities of Microsoft Silverlight™ to develop configurators that can run on Web sites or on-site kiosks. By using Microsoft products and technologies, the Bunkspeed developers succeeded in creating a more compelling look-and-feel for the software to match its rich functionality. What’s more, the team benefitted from streamlined development that helped them get to market quickly.
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With Windows Presentation Foundation, we’ve created a visually dynamic interface that is on par with rich functionality already provided by HyperDrive. |
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Thomas Teger, Director of Marketing and Strategic Planning, Bunkspeed |
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Situation
Three-dimensional (3-D)-rendering software has a reputation of being complex and difficult to use for anyone but experts. Started in November 2002 by automotive design and gaming software veteran Philip Lunn, Bunkspeed, based in Los Angeles, California, has been changing the 3-D software solutions landscape. The company’s solutions are easy to learn and simple to use, and produce stunning photograph-quality results. By successfully incorporating these ideals in its product offerings, the company has distinguished itself as an innovator and a leader in the industry.
HyperDrive is a product visualization tool that helps companies transform engineering data into realistic on-screen prototypes. Initially, Bunkspeed targeted the automotive industry with this product. Automotive designers, for example, can use the product to create high-end images of entire cars or car-part models (such as headlight assemblies) and evaluate different finishes in various lighting conditions. The on-screen images enable designers to reduce the number of physical prototypes they must build, which lowers costs and speeds design decisions. Because these capabilities apply easily across industries, Bunkspeed has quickly expanded its customer base to a variety of businesses in the industrial design industry.
Still, Bunkspeed executives recognize untapped market potential. For example, marketing and design firms could benefit from the ability to easily create high-quality, 3-D on-screen models. To win over these customers—who typically are less technical and more visual—Bunkspeed needed to take the user interface (UI) of HyperDrive to the next level by making it both easier to use and more graphically appealing.
“To bring an application to ‘next-generation’ status, we had to think beyond what’s under the hood—we had to consider the entire experience,” explains Thomas Teger, Director of Marketing and Strategic Planning for Bunkspeed. “We needed to wrap the solid functionality with a visually rich interface to ensure a superior out-of-box experience for customers. In addition, to maintain our competitive edge, we needed to get to market fast.”
| Number of developers |
7 developers |
| Estimated time to complete |
9 months |
| Developer tools |
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
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| Programming languages |
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| Programming model and technologies |
- Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0
- Windows Presentation Foundation
- Microsoft Silverlight
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Solution
“We chose the Microsoft® .NET Framework so that we could create a world-class application in a fraction of the time that it would have taken using C++,” explains Mark Rotenberg, Director of Engineering for Bunkspeed.
To create HyperDrive, Bunkspeed used Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 development system and the advanced capabilities of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0. Specifically, the seven developers who worked on the nine-month project used Windows® Presentation Foundation to redesign the UI and Microsoft Silverlight™ to create additional customer-focused applications.
Developing the User Interface
Windows Presentation Foundation provides developers with a unified programming model for building smart-client user experiences that incorporate 2-D and 3-D user interfaces, media, and documents. This technology played a pivotal role in helping Bunkspeed create the visually dynamic UI that the company needed to appeal to a broader customer segment.
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Windows Presentation Foundation supports advanced hardware-accelerated graphics and sophisticated controls, simplifies our development effort, and provides greater separation of the business and presentation logic. |
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Arne Claassen, Senior Developer, Bunkspeed |
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“Windows Presentation Foundation supports advanced hardware-accelerated graphics and sophisticated controls, simplifies our development effort, and provides greater separation of the business and presentation logic,” explains Arne Claassen, Senior Developer for Bunkspeed. “The technology includes many built-in features and services, such as font scaling, transparency, dynamic layouts, and rich data binding, so that developers don’t have to do everything manually.”
Previously, creating the UI required laborious customizations that made it difficult to implement the desired design. With Windows Presentation Foundation, developers created a new UI that is reminiscent of the task-focused, dark gray visual style found in Microsoft Expression® Studio. Developers could implement these effects easily because Windows Presentation Foundation offers a large selection of predefined UI controls and the ability to customize these controls. Using Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to implement design elements declaratively, the HyperDrive team was able to focus on their individual strengths: The developers implemented the complex business logic, while the designers focused on the polish of the user interface.
During the development process, the team also enjoyed the flexibility and power of Visual Studio. “Visual Studio is one of the best integrated development environments that I’ve ever worked with,” enthuses Claassen. “It helps us write very readable and large code bases because it provides deep insight into how our systems are composed.”
Creating New Business Applications
Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Using Silverlight, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, and its own 3-D-rendering software, developers are creating configurators that Bunkspeed customers can post on Web sites or on-site kiosks to further enhance their customers’ buying experience.
For example, when purchasing a high-priced item, such as a car or yacht, selecting the right color is an important part of the process. Using Silverlight and Visual Studio 2008, Bunkspeed developed various DuPont Paint Configurators for high-end clients. These configurators enable people to get an exact view of what a paint color will look like on the item being purchased.
“We’re excited about Silverlight because it makes use of our existing code along with the skills of our designers who already know how to use XAML and C#,” says Claassen. “Consequently, we can create sophisticated applications without being required to build everything from scratch and learn new concepts.”
Benefits
When an automobile company designs a car, the company wants to create both a stylish exterior and powerful engine. Using the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Presentation Foundation, Bunkspeed has achieved a similar goal by building a visually rich UI to go along with the powerful underlying capabilities of the software. In addition, by supporting a streamlined, productive development process, Microsoft technology enables Bunkspeed to achieve a fast time-to-market and maintain its competitive edge. Collectively, these benefits increase the appeal of the company’s software to a wider array of customers.
Rich Look and Feel
One of the primary goals of the HyperDrive project was to significantly boost the look and feel of HyperDrive (shown in Figure 1)—a goal that the Bunkspeed developers accomplished by using Windows Presentation Foundation.
“It’s always been important for us to provide a superior out-of-box experience for our customers. And we understand there is a lot of value in ensuring that the look and feel of our application matches the content that the customer is showing off,” explains Teger. “With Windows Presentation Foundation, we’ve created a visually dynamic interface that is on par with rich functionality already provided by HyperDrive.”
Superior User Experience
Bunkspeed doesn’t want to just meet customer expectations, it wants to exceed them. Using the .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Presentation Foundation, Bunkspeed enhanced HyperDrive so that anyone with a little design experience can easily make high-quality, 3-D renderings, without navigating the complexities inherent in other design software.
“With Microsoft technology, we have been able to transform HyperDrive from a niche application for experts to a tool that can be used by a broader community, such as designers, salespeople, or executives,” explains Teger. “Because our customers feel comfortable with the product, the learning curve has been flattened.”
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| Figure 1. HyperDrive uses Windows Presentation Foundation. |
Fast Time-to-Market
Bunkspeed needs a streamlined, productive development organization for the company to maintain a competitive edge. Bunkspeed maintains these tight operations by using Microsoft products and technologies. For example, the .NET Framework 3.0 removes many of the manual tasks associated with development work. Specifically, Windows Presentation Foundation and XAML eliminate the labor-intensive processes to implement a design vision.
“Microsoft technology lets us innovate on a dime, making it possible for us to outrun the competition,” says Teger. “The technology frees up resources so that we can focus on delivering applications that provide the features our customers are really looking for.”
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With Microsoft technology, we have been able to transform HyperDrive from a niche application for experts to a tool that can be used by a broader community, such as designers, salespeople, or executives. |
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Thomas Teger, Director of Marketing and Strategic Planning, Bunkspeed |
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Teger goes on to explain how achieving a fast time-to-market will help the company grow its configurator business. “Silverlight helps us develop and deliver configurators that run on
both the Web and on Windows operating systems in a short period of time. This ability to deliver quickly will also increase our margins.”
Looking to the Future
With HyperDrive in production, Bunkspeed is already looking forward to the additional benefits that will come with upgrading its technology to the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. Bunkspeed anticipates the hardware-accelerated bitmap effects in Windows Presentation Foundation, deep Microsoft DirectX® integration, and updatable bitmap features will significantly improve performance. This improved performance, coupled with faster start-up time, will help HyperDrive cruise at high speed. “The out-of-box experience for a customer can be pivotal to the overall experience they have with the product. Our customers want products to be up and running quickly, and we can best meet this need with the .NET Framework 3.5,” explains Teger.
Bunkspeed also is expecting to continue improving on the workflow between designers and developers. Windows Presentation Foundation brings designers much closer to the application development process, and Microsoft Expression Studio 2 introduces features that will continue to improve collaboration. New features in Microsoft Expression Studio 2 further enhance the ability of designers to easily share designs, while developers focus on the business logic and the modeling.
Bunkspeed developers will also start exploring features of the .NET Framework including Language-Integrated Query (LINQ). Bunkspeed developers do a lot of iterating on data structures, and they look forward to using LINQ to improve how data structures are articulated.
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0
.NET Framework 3.0 is Microsoft’s managed-code programming model for developing software on the Windows platform. It builds on the .NET Framework 2.0, combining the power of the existing .NET Framework 2.0 application programming interfaces with new technologies for building applications that provide visually stunning user experiences, seamless interoperable communications, and the ability to model a range of business processes. The .NET Framework 3.0 includes Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Windows CardSpace technologies. It provides a consistent and familiar development experience, bringing new technology to the millions of developers programming in managed code today.
For more information about the .NET Framework 3.0, please go to:
For More Information
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For more information about Bunkspeed products and services, call (760) 918-9780 or visit the Web site at:
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