The Challenge

The Midland Valley Exploration team was planning on a major re-design of its product suite, a sophisticated structural geology application that provides insight into subsurface exploration via 3D visualization. They wanted the new application to run on Linux and Windows as well as their legacy UNIX systems and to integrate seamlessly with their graphics toolkit, Coin 3D.

The Solution

Trolltech Qt enabled the team to streamline its UI development process for faster coding. The results were impressive, with the new application appearing native on all platforms without any code tweaks. Additionally, Qt worked seamlessly with the graphics toolkit, Coin 3D, to enable the addition of visualization functionality. The MVE team also leveraged the selection of widgets and third party add-ons and libraries available with Qt.

The Value

The experience of developing cross-platform GUIs with Qt and Coin3D was a resounding success. The tools saved programmers up to a year of development time, allowing them the freedom to focus on product features, quality and robustness. The reduced time and efficient resource use resulted in decreased cost while the finished, feature-rich application delivered increased customer satisfaction.

“It was clear to us that Qt is a mature platform with mature OpenGL module support, and a tried and tested C++ solution – two things we absolutely needed.”
Colin Dunlop, Principal Software Engineer, Midland Valley Exploration Ltd.