1.
Qt Automotive Suite
Under the hood after one year of hacking
Johan Thelin

2.
Introduction
 Johan Thelin, System Architect at Luxoft
 Background: Qt Champion, Foundations of Qt
Development, QmlBook, Pelagicore, Nokia Qt
Development Frameworks
qmlbook.org

3.
What’s in the Box?
 Core components (non UI)
 Qt Application Manager
 Qt IVI
 Qt GENIVI Extras
 Tools and best practices
 QmlLive
 GammaRay
 Integrations of QtAM in QtCreator

4.
What’s in the Box?
 Neptune – An Automotive Reference UI
 Center stack
 Instrument Cluster
 AppStore
 Solutions to selected key issues in IVI
 Notifications prioritization
 Application life-cycle
 Security for deployment and execution

5.
What’s left to do?
 Qt Automotive Suite provides a reference UI
 OEMs still have to provide
 Deep vehicle integration
 OEM specific features and extensions
 End-user available application distribution

6.
Developers first!
 Our mission is to bring the Qt way to automotive
 Easy to get started
 Ease of development
 Great documentation
 All the tools you need at your fingertips

7.
A Look at
the Past Year

8.
Qt Application Manager at a Glance
 Wayland compositor
 Graphics
 Input
 Owns the Apps
 Installation, update, removal
 Start, pause, stop
 Run-time for the System UI

9.
Qt Application Manager
Timing and fidelity
 StartTimer
 Start-up timing
 Support custom checkpoints
 Can be used for the System UI and Apps
 ProcessMonitor
 Frame rate
 Memory usage
 CPU load
 SystemMonitor
 Frame rate
 Memory rate
 CPU load
 # of CPUs
 Amount of memory

10.
Qt Application Manager
• Notification Manager
• Prioritization
• Stickyness
• Actions
• Progress
• Time outs
• All still via
org.freedesktop.Notifications

11.
Qt Application Manager
 Code base maintenance
 More usage of C++11
 nullptr
 Q_DECL_NOEXCEPT_EXPR(false)

12.
Qt Application Manager

13.
Neptune UI at a Glance
 Reference UI and demonstrator baseline
 System UI runs on Qt Application Manager
 A variety of Apps
 Settings
 Navigation
 Media
 Browser
 and so on

14.
Neptune UI
• Most visible change is the WindowOverview page

15.
WindowOverview Page
GridView {
model: ListModel {}
delegate: Item {
ShaderEffectSource {
anchors.fill: parent
anchors.margins: gridView.padding
sourceItem: model.item
}
}
Connections {
target: ApplicationManagerInterface
onApplicationSurfaceReady: {
...
gridView.model.append({ "item" : item })
}
onApplicationSurfaceLost: {
for (var i = 0; i < gridView.model.count; ++i) {
if (gridView.model.get(i).item === item)
gridView.model.remove(i);
}
}
}

16.
WindowOverview Page
delegate: Item {
MouseArea {
anchors.fill: parent
onClicked: {
ApplicationManager.startApplication(ApplicationManagerInterface.appIdFromWindow(model.item))
root.close()
// Hide all other windows, otherwise the will be in the stack and switching doesn't work
for (var i = 0; i < gridView.model.count; ++i) {
var window = gridView.model.get(i).item
if (window !== model.item)
WindowManager.setWindowProperty(window, "visibility", false)
}
}
}
Tool {
onClicked: ApplicationManager.stopApplication(ApplicationManagerInterface.appIdFromWindow(model.item))
}
}

17.
Taking it to the Next Level
• We are doing a face-lift of Neptune...
• ...both graphical and code wise
• New look and feel – still under development
• Qt Quick Controls 2
• Updated layout strategy

18.
Qt IVI at a Glance
 Qt abstraction layer on top of the platform
services
 IPC agnostic, platform agnostic
 Dynamically loaded backends
 Dynamic bindings all the way
 Can interchange backends
 Allows for service discovery

19.
Qt IVI – Code Generator with QFace
• Reference implementations of Media and VehicleFunctions
• Integration of QFace
• Code generator based on Qt aware IDL
• Jinja based code generators – very simply to extend
• Fully integrated in your qmake / cmake workflow
• Handwritten APIs for static APIs, e.g. media, tuner, bluetooth
• Generated APIs for volatile APIs, e.g. vehicle signals

20.
File(s)Generator(s)
Qt IVI - QFace
IDL Model Generator(s) Source file(s)
QFace

21.
Qt IVI - QFace
• IDL supports
• Interfaces
• Data types, structs, enums, etc
• Annotations – meta-data for the generators
• Jinja based generators
• Used for Python web frameworks
• Lets you traverse the model
• Very easy to write custom generators
System
Module
Import Interface
Property
Operation
Event
Enum Flag Struct
Property

22.
QML Live
• Live reloader with server/client architecture
• Very quick turn-around time for developers and designers
• Many contributions from Jolla
• Extraction of core to lib
• Many bugs squashed
• Lost dependencies on widgets

23.
More...
• Qt
• GammaRay
• Qt GENIVI Extras module

24.
Where are we heading?
 Updated Neptune UI
 Redesigned
 Qt Quick Controls 2
 Qt3D for vehicle visualizations
 Integration of Squish
 A new Instrument Cluster
 Qt IVI
 More APIs
 Refactoring VehicleSettings to use QFace
 Enhanched Emulator support
 More how-to documentation

25.
Where to get it?
qt.io pelux.iogenivi.org

26.
Thank you for your attention!
jthelin@luxoft.com