Land Rover is receiving auto industry accolades for its 2010 Range Rover. Not only are critics praising the subtle updates to the Range Rover’s classic exterior, but they are raving about the exciting new additions to the vehicle interior. One of the most dramatic additions to the new Range Rover is the vehicle’s virtual instrument cluster supplied by Visteon Corporation.

Traditional physical gauges no longer take center stage on the new Range Rover dashboard. In their place is a new, 12” Thin Film Transistor screen which shows all essential driver information via smartly designed graphical displays and virtual dials. The driver can customize the message center to display personal prioritized information – from system warnings, outside temperature and vehicle information to audio and telephone displays. The message center can also communicate off-road information, like steering angle, wheel articulation, suspension settings and Terrain Response™ settings.

Nick Rogers, Land Rover’s Chief Engineer of New Vehicle Architecture explains, “The new display technology used by the 2010 Range Rover is a major advance. It gives tremendous flexibility in presenting information, so that the driver gets precisely the data they require, in all driving conditions.” The instrument cluster and message center screens were created for Land Rover with Altia HMI development and code generation tools.

For the Range Rover instrument cluster, Land Rover’s Tier 1 supplier, Visteon, used Altia Design to assist in the creation of the custom graphical meters and menu system to access the many other features in the unique new instrument cluster. Altia Design was used to integrate graphics from several sources, create additional images and organize the images and menus into the digital instrument cluster Model. The model was used to test and verify desired instrument cluster behaviors. Altia’s DeepScreen software was then used to generate C code which is now deployed within the Range Rover instrument cluster. The DeepScreen-generated code is specific to the selected 2D/3D graphics accelerator, exploiting the full power of the embedded target GPU.

Already regarded as one of the world’s most complete luxury vehicles, Land Rover has again raised the bar with its 2010 Range Rover. With information cluster screens developed using the Altia toolchain, the Range Rover satisfies the luxury vehicle driver’s expectation for on-demand information with delightful, cutting-edge graphics.

About Altia...

Altia, Inc. is a software company that provides user interface design and development tools that can be used from concept to final product code. Altia was founded in 1991 and its customers include GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, Guidant, Lockheed Martin and hundreds of other leading manufacturers.

With the Altia toolchain, users can create working user-driven prototypes – from artists’ assets, pre-built library components or from scratch – and then integrate that prototype with their underlying application for testing and validation. When complete, Altia software converts that same prototype to graphics code that is deployable even on low power hardware.

For more information about Altia, visit www.altia.com or contact Altia’s corporate headquarters at +1 719-598-4299.