Hair-Simulation

"We were looking for an elegant and efficient way to move our hair-simulation application from a local Windows application to be completely Web-based. IntraWeb was the logical choice since it allowed us to reuse existing Borland Delphi code and create HTML pages with even more functionality then the original application had."

Christian Gotschim, Senior Developer, Vulcansoft Ltd - trendoo

Vulcansoft Ltd - trendoo

trendoo is a Web-based photo-realistic hair-simulation that allows individuals as well as hair salons to try hundreds of hair-styles and colors on a photograph of any person. While not the first such application, trendoo is the first hair-simulation that truly takes the guesswork out of that next hairdo because of its realism. The appropriate care and styling products from various manufacturers (L'Oreal, Schwarzkopf, Goldwell) are also calculated and are completely customizable by a salon. Subscription tickets are handled in real-time via PayPal IPNs.

Situation

We needed an integrated development environment that allowed us to reuse existing code and our expertise in Borland Delphi without much need to switch back and forth between other programming languages for the server and the client. Moving the entire application online was the way to go since the program is subscription-based and relies heavily on newly added data (new or changed hair-styles, colors, etc.). We also wanted to be present on non-PC devices such as mobile phones and PDAs.

Impact

Using IntraWeb made it possible for us to develop a manageable Web-based application accessible to basically anyone connected to the Internet. No more bulky monthly updates for each user and much less hassle for us trying to figure out what went wrong on a customer PC. Now everyone automatically has the same version and we collect all necessary data on the server to handle problems that a customer might have and provide them with immediate feedback on how to improve the quality of their next hair-simulation.

Technology

Tools: IntraWeb 7.2, Delphi 7, FlashFiler
Other tools evaluated: CGI, WebSnap
Number of developers: 1
Time to develop: 1.5 years