Difference between revisions of "SHIP Overview"

Revision as of 04:38, 20 May 2014

The Serious Human Interface™ Platform

The Serious Human Interface™ Platform (SHIP) is a rapid GUI development and deployment system with five main ingredients:

• SHIP Total IDE (SHIPTide), the PC/Mac/Linux based IDE for developing your GUI
• the cargo binary data file that SHIPTide exports, containing your whole GUI including fonts, images, layout, audio, compiled scripts, communications, and more
• the Serious Integrated Module (SIM) hardware that hosts your GUI and becomes your new front panel, communicating typically by UART to the rest of your system
• SHIPEngine, the embedded runtime firmware on your SIM that runs GUIs that SHIPTide exports
• Communications, including the upcoming SHIPBridge Protocol, enabling communications between the SIM and your system

First Steps

Want to learn a bit more about SHIP? Here are a few resources that can get you familiar with SHIP concepts and capabilities before you dive deeper:

• SHIP Technical Overview Presentation  ↴ 
• AN0301 - SHIPTide First Look (video 4m27s)
• Overview of the Box Model... all about SHIP containers

SHIP Versions

SHIP Version 4 (SHIPv4) has been available since 2012 and works well in many applications.
SHIP Version 5 (SHIPv5) is scheduled for April 2014 beta release and includes many new capabilities:

• Major communications enhancements, including the SHIPBridge Protocol with firmware updates and data movement over USB/SPI/UART
• Runtime drawing on "canvas" objects
• Larger font support and enhanced text placement with "textframe" objects
• Language translation manager, including MS Excel translation import/export
• Build configuration manager for single project/multiple output
• Improved scripting performance, floating point support, and numerous new functions
• Built-in bootloader for firmware (engine, cargo, etc.) updates

Training and Applications Notes

• Video Training Library
• SHIP Application Notes including example SHIPTide projects and training notes

Technical Reference

• Platform and Port Reference (includes property reference)
• Node Reference (includes property reference)
• Layout Concepts: the Box Model and Text Model
• Multi-Language and Font support
• Data Types
• Communications
• GUI Reference Manuals for SIMs