A main focus of TDG’s software development is to develop online multimedia products rather than “standalone” software products on disk or CD. We have developed a substantial in-house capability for producing online multimedia products and we also collaborate routinely with skilled specialists in programming, digital graphic design, image generation, and various subject content areas.
Basic Approach: We are skilled at presenting complex
material online in a simple and graphic-intensive way. We have also been very
successful in using a high degree of user-interaction to increase interest,
learning and retention.
Progress to date:Our www.EcoAdvisor.com
site already has over 8 hours of highly interactive on-line training and guidance
for producing sustainable commercial buildings, with an emphasis on energy
efficiency. This site includes over 500 MB of graphics, images, and content.
§ Topic outline for Module
§ Define
Topics
§
Detailed outline for each
topic
§ Develop Content and Structure
§ Storyboards
– containing content, sketch graphics, and proposed interactivity
§ Database
development in support of storyboards
§ Graphics Development
§ 3-D
Modeling and images
§ 2-D
and 3-D graphics
§ Online Graphical User Interface(GUI) for Module
§ Online scripts and computer code
§ Online Publishing
§ Debugging and Quality Assurance.
Object-Oriented Programming and Data Structures. We routinely use object-oriented programming whenever possible. This object oriented approach is applied to (1) the writing of computer code, (2) the development of standard user interface objects (buttons, images, popup menus, etc), and (3) database structures for multimedia content (e.g., building elements, energy conservation opportunities, building design strategies, etc.). We have found that the use of such object-oriented approaches saves us considerable time and effort on all subsequent applications. We are able to either directly re-use major chunks of computer code or modify it only slightly.
Internal Project-specific Development Websites. For each
online multimedia project or module under development we maintain a “Development”
website of interim products to facilitate communications among the development
team. This internal site posts the newest development efforts, including interim
products (e.g., Powerpoint storyboards, example graphics, animations, and
images, Excel spreadsheets or Online topics), dates, short descriptions, and
staff contacts.
Use of energy and economic simulation tools. We have
developed techniques for using both simplified and detailed analysis software
(e.g., DOE-2 and EnergyPlus) to present the impact of user choices and decisions.
Our techniques allow these results to be calculated in a completely “transparent”
way to the user. In other words, the user does not need to know how to use
the software. It is a background resource.
EcoAdvisor
Radiance Generation
Online Multimedia
EnergyPlus Tools
DOE-2 Param
