Automotive Suite v1.0 gets into gear

Three companies have got together to launch the first generation of the Qt Automotive Suite. With a background of providing automotive user interface (UI) software to more than twenty automotive customers, the Qt Company along with Pelagicore and KDAB see this move as an opportunity to bring more design innovations to the car industry.

By creating a suite of automotive specific components and tooling, the industry will realise significantly lower development costs and faster time to market, claim the companies.

Part of the philosophy linking the three companies focuses on how connectivity and cloud storage innovations are impacting on industry. The Qt Company develops and delivers the Qt development framework under commercial and open source licenses and says that one of the key benefits of being open is it creates an ecosystem of developers and partners that can become involved in joint innovation.

An advantage of a pre-built suite of automotive development software is that it accelerates the design process. Designers can select hardware and start differential development from day one as all the preparatory development is done for them.

The Qt Automotive Suite provides a multi-process architecture enabling 2D and photo-realistic 3D user experiences in combination with secure cloud services. It runs on desktop systems which, say the companies, means that R&D teams can be productive long before target hardware becomes widely available. A further feature of the systems is provides building blocks to create custom tools for manufacturers own frameworks.