The Requirements
To ensure a successful outcome to the project, PTP staff needed to utilise the following knowledge and skills:
- An in-depth knowledge of networking protocols
- Understanding of complex software systems designed using Object Oriented methods
- An understanding of the auto-sampler hardware and its operation within three-dimensional space
- The ability to communicate with all parties involved in the project, from digital designers through to our clients’ customers
The Approach
The first consideration at the outset of the project was to decide what software language to create the application in. PTP is able to design and create applications in a wide range of languages and in this case, it was decided that C# was the most appropriate language so a solution was written in C# under Microsoft’s .NET CLR. The reason for this choice was that the finished solution needed to run on a 10” tablet PC with a touchscreen interface and Windows 7 OS. A C# solution was deemed to be the best choice when considering the limited processing power of tablet PCs and therefore the consequent need for a solution which was not too demanding of hardware processing power.