Coherent – one of the world’s leading photonics manufacturers and innovators – wanted to expand the capabilities of its cutting-edge LabMax-Pro software by offering it on iOS and Android tablets. The company engaged projekt202, a Xamarin Premier Partner, to deliver the mobile app, which would provide more freedom and flexibility to Coherent’s users in their lab environments.
The Work
Matching the high sampling rates of the LabMax-Pro desktop software required the expansive, flexible performance that only a native mobile solution can provide. The Coherent team had already invested in performance-tuning the .NET-built desktop software.
These key constraints, along with the cost savings and time-to-market benefits provided by a multi-platform solution, made Xamarin the perfect choice. Xamarin is the industry leader in providing an enterprise mobile development platform that accelerates the creation, testing and monitoring of mission-critical software.
By utilizing Portable Class Libraries, the projekt202 team was able to reuse nearly all of the desktop software’s tested code for communicating with Coherent’s diverse array of supported meters and sensors. Since Xamarin provides full access to native device libraries and capabilities, it was easy to take advantage of the USB Host support on Android and even include a small amount of native C code in the most performance-critical section of the data acquisition loop.
LabMax-Pro includes complex visualizations and analysis of collected data. Xamarin made it easy to incorporate both native iOS and Android charting and visualization components, while still sharing the majority of the app code.
The technical capabilities available to true native solutions meant that the projekt202 mobile designers were free to create the best user experience possible, built on the native controls and interface patterns unique to each mobile platform.
The Results
The combined solution reused nearly all of the core logic from the desktop app and shared 74% of the code between the iOS and Android versions, while also meeting the stringent performance metrics achieved by the desktop software.
Xamarin enabled the projekt202 team to leverage the existing investment Coherent made in its products and deliver the first tablet-based solution in the laser market, without compromising market-leading features and performance.
Coherent noted, “The new LabMax-Pro Mobile app enables wireless operation of laser power and energy sensors using an off-the-shelf mobile device. By leveraging the existing high-quality, yet economical, touchscreen displays currently available on the market, Coherent can deliver a powerful and easy-to-use laser measurement solution at a reduced cost and in a more compact and portable form factor. In addition to this improved mobility, the LabMax-Pro Mobile App provides the ability to save and export data that can be sent to colleagues and imported into the desktop application for more in-depth analysis and reporting.”
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