Hardware Portfolio
As a Hardware Engineer I worked on a Variety of Interesting Products
Before becoming a full-time software developer, I built a lot of useful products as a hardware engineer. Designing and manufacturing were welcome challenges, and turning my thoughts into real-world physical things was extremely rewarding.
Areas: Seismology Equipment, Graphics & Image processing, Industrial Data Acquisition, Electronics Manufacturing
Visi - Hair Salon Imaging System - Pixelar
Founder DeveloperVisi was a Hair Salon Imaging system that enabled customers to try on alternate virtual hairstyles quickly. The computer's camera took a picture of the client and then showed images of them with new hairstyles from the catalog of styles. Pixelar Imaging Systems was a company I cofounded.
My Role: Company coFounder, as well as electronics design, software, product design and manufacturing. We were a small, excellent team. My co-founder was the amazing Eid Eid
Some Geek
Built during the early days of the PC meant our team had to create custom-quality video capture and display hardware and software. Also, we designed a custom processing unit using a Parallel processing CPU called the Inmos Transputer, which did the complex image computing. Core Image processing routines were created using a programing language called Occam. The team designed all the hardware and software, including a GUI APP on DOS in 'C'.
Portable Digital Seismology - Xitek and Instantel
Founder Engineer VP TechnologyThe DS-377 was an industry-leading portable seismology product developed and manufactured under contract with a new startup called Instantel founded by the late Denzil Doyle. He was the former President of Digital Equipment Canada. Xitek was an electronics design and manufacturing company I founded which Instantel later purchased, and I joined their team.
My Role: Xitek Founder, then VP Tech @ Instantel. Designed the electronics, software, firmware, industrial design and manufacturing. Four products where created. My co-founder at Xitek was Steve Maynard.
DS-377 Model
The DS-337 was first model produced for Instantel and successfully became the industry leading product in it's category. All based on custom designed electronic and software.
Custom 3D Accelerometer
Accelerometers were used in a 3D configuration to detect and record ground movement. A self-calibration function ensured valid results using a clever proprietary method.
DS-377 In the Field
The primary use case was monitoring and proof of regulatory compliance during controlled blasting operations.
DS-500 Model
Later model DS-500 introduced PC-based software as well for analytics. Flashback: Shown is a Grid Systems laptop, a leading-edge laptop at the time.
Some Geek
The DS-377 ran on a whopping 32K of ASSEMBLY code using a Zilog Z-280 processor. At that time, creating a portable digital data acquisition device that ran on batteries in a harsh environment was challenging. Adding new software features became problematic once the 32K ROM storage was full, but rounds of refactoring always found extra bytes of storage for new code.
Other Products - Pixelar
Founder DeveloperIn addition to our imaging products, Pixelar Imaging Systems specialized in the contract design of products on spec, prototyping, and small-scale production runs. Here are some of the projects we were lucky to deliver. We were a small hands-on five person dev team with Eid, Vlad, Brian, Steve and myself.
My Role: Founder of Pixelar Imaging Systems and Engineer. Designed the electronics, software, circuit boards, firmware, Xilinx FPGA design, industrial design and manufacturing.
Corel Trace - Windows Software
Pixelar used its imaging algorithm experience to design the first version of Corel trace under contract. The software would trace the outline, enable cropping of backgrounds from the image, and convert bitmaps into vector drawings.
PC Graphics Card
A high end PC graphics card. Plug and Play compatible to IBM specifications. Max resolution was 1000x700. Based on the NCR 7300 graphics processor. Windows OS was just launched.
Industrial Data Acquisition
An industrial data acquisition product for very harsh environments developed under contract.
Steam Quality Monitoring
A non-invasive "Steam Quality Monitoring" Device for use in the Alberta tar sands oil production. It measured injection steam quality, flow rates, and enthalpy at the wellhead using innovative Neutron-based technology.
Some Geek
Each product can have 500-1500 parts which was always a challenge in small quantities, so the cycle to design and manufacture one unit was so much work and coordination. Products required electronic circuit design, printed circuit board design, firmware (machine code), industrial design, and Xilinx FPGA design. Affordable CAD software was just starting to mature at that time which helped with many of these tasks.