About Seaweed Systems

No embedded graphics company is better positioned to meet the needs of the real-time, embedded-systems market than Seaweed Systems, Inc. For more than a decade, Seaweed Systems has maintained a constant focus on delivering high-quality, fully-tested, and fully-supported graphics products and services including X Window System and OpenGL® implementations for both standard and safety-critical embedded systems.

Dedicated to the Market

Seaweed Systems is dedicated to the embedded graphics market, where its unmatched price, performance, feature set, and implementation schedules have allowed its customers to focus on their key applications rather than being distracted by the infrastructure needed to drive today's complex graphics processors. Seaweed Systems believes in open standards that enable its off-the-shelf products to interoperate with the major real-time operating systems and graphics-development tools — allowing its customers to learn one set of graphics tools regardless of whether they are developing aircraft avionics or automotive applications. Seaweed Systems chairs the Khronos Group's safety-critical working group, which has defined the OpenGL SC subset of the OpenGL API for 2D and 3D, small-footprint, safety-critical applications.

Commercial, Off-The-Shelf Software

The benefits of using COTS software in embedded systems are recognized by an increasing number of Seaweed Systems customers. These customers include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE SYSTEMS, EADS, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Rockwell Collins, Smiths Aerospace, Elbit Systems, Honeywell, L3, DRS, Ball Aerospace, NASA, and Synergy Microsystems. These customers have used Seaweed Systems' software on a large number of United States and international military aircraft and ground vehicle programs, including several with DO-178B certification requirements. Seaweed Systems' customers also benefit enormously from the close working relationships that Seaweed Systems forges with the best-of-breed vendors of products that interoperate with those from Seaweed Systems. Using Seaweed Systems to fulfill your requirements for embedded graphics engages an experienced team to help speed your products to market.

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A Comprehensive Set of Products

Seaweed Systems offers a comprehensive set of hardware and software products, and a full set of product lifecycle services from hardware design assistance to certification support:

  • Seaweed Systems® SeaWind®/178 software product line includes the first off-the-shelf, certifiable, OpenGL SC (Safety Critical) API implementation for both 2D and 3D real-time embedded systems available anywhere. The SeaWind/178 product family is based on the SeaWind/178 Core API, which is compliant with the OpenGL SC API specification. Customers can purchase additional modules for specific functions including real-time video, windowing, custom, and avionics extensions, purchasing and certifying only the software they need to run on their target systems. SeaWind/178 products are available today with the documentation, certification artifacts, test harnesses, and support needed to help customers through the certification process.

  • The SeaWind graphics products implement standard X Window System and X Window System with OpenGL clients and servers for embedded systems that do not have safety-critical requirements

  • Seaweed Systems' hardware products help developers create new graphical embedded systems and help ensure a constant flow of graphics devices throughout the long product lifecycles that are typical of embedded-system programs

  • A comprehensive set of hardware and software support services helps Seaweed Systems customers throughout the product lifecycle. Seaweed Systems can provide hardware design assistance, porting to specific platforms, and graphics-specific consulting services. Its CertAssist program helps avionics developers through the DO-178B certification process up to Design Assurance Level A.

  • Seaweed Systems has an on-staff FAA Designated Engineering Representative (DER) who has full Design Assurance Level A approval authority for both DO-178B (software) and DO-254 (hardware) for Part 23 and Part 25 projects. Seaweed Systems' DER is available for consultation on software and electronic hardware compliance and certification issues.

An Uncommon Organization

It's no coincidence that Seaweed Systems is a leader in real-time, embedded graphics. It takes an uncommon organization to create the world's first COTS OpenGL implementation for safety-critical environments.

Bob Schulman founded Seaweed Systems in 1993, delivering X Window System implementations to the embedded market. Seeing that the general-purpose OpenGL standard would likely dictate interfaces in future embedded systems, Seaweed Systems integrated OpenGL interfaces into its standard products beginning in 1996. With the addition of staff members including Martin Beeby, who helped develop safety-critical jet-engine control firmware, and Phil Cole, Seaweed Systems' VP of Sales & Marketing, Seaweed Systems was able to develop and bring to market a new OpenGL implementation designed and built from the ground up to be certified for safety-critical systems. With the addition of Randall Fulton, Seaweed Systems' DER, Seaweed Systems is ideally equipped to serve the needs of the real-time, safety-critical, embedded-systems market.

Being an industry leader takes an equally uncommon engineering organization, including hardware and software developers, test specialists, and project management experts. Developing certifiable products requires experts in the OpenGL APIs that are willing to undertake software projects with code to write, but with an extraordinary amount of documentation, test-harness development, and testing to complete in addition. This requires a rare combination of talents, and for companies developing safety-critical applications, Seaweed Systems is a rare asset. Seaweed Systems runs as a distributed company, with staff in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and with engineering centers of expertise located in Burlington, MA, and the San Francisco bay area.

Learn More...

For a detailed overview of Seaweed Systems, the benefits of COTS software, and its SeaWind/178 product line, please refer to the following white paper:

PDF file Seaweed Systems and Safety-Critical Avionics Graphics Software, Seaweed Systems executive brief, April 2006