A manufacturer of rapid prototyping machines turned to ProtoLink for
assistance with porting their sophisticated machine control software from UNIX
to Windows. The machines use a process known as selective laser sintering
to create 3-D objects from computer-aided design (CAD) data.
The company had an existing suite of UNIX applications that
controlled the machines and provided the interface for machine operators.
ProtoLink architected and jump-started the implementation of the port from
UNIX to Win32. A ProtoLink-designed multithreaded message queuing system served
as the foundation for the new applications.
Pleased with the initial porting effort, the company subsequently
contracted ProtoLink to develop additional complementary applications that
facilitated remote monitoring of the machines. The first of these
applications allows authorized personnel to configure a set of actions to be
taken at various stages in the build process or if an alarm condition is
detected. Possible actions include notifying support personnel through either
an e-mail or page, and launching additional processes for the purpose of
gathering diagnostic information or transitioning to a new phase of the
build. A second application gives remote users limited view-only access to
the operator interface of the machine.
