How WPF can help your golf game, or PING’s new beginning
This app from PING, called nFlight, is extremely cool. Beautiful, sophisticated, and fun. nFlight analyzes your golf swing to develop specifications for custom fit golf clubs. The app performs complex simulations and renders beautiful displays that show actual ball flight with different club parameters, humidity levels, wind conditions, etc. It even shows the leaves blowing and water rippling.
For the richest experience and highest app performance, the PING team built this app in WPF. Orders are sent from the retail locations where people get custom fit for their clubs off to PING for manufacturing, and PING manages updates with Synchronization Services. A simple, but compelling example showing the best of software and services together. :)
PING originally planned this as an 18-month project, but a year into it they were struggling. Developing an app that was both beautiful and also computationally sophisticated proved a real challenge. With 6 months to go before the project was due, they basically started over.
Fortunately, they were able salvage some graphic design concepts. Those were created in Expression Blend and handed off to developers working in Visual Studio. You might guess how the story goes from here on out:
- Controls that took weeks to build in their old environment were now getting done in a day
- The new workflow for developers and designers had a huge impact on the teams productivity and agility
- The nFlight app maintained high fidelity to design intent
- The PING team re-worked their original efforts in less than 3 months, and had a production version of the app 2 months after that
- By early 2009, over 400 PING dealers around the world were using the app
For PING, the benefits of their WPF nFlight app go beyond developer and designer productivity… they make better consumer experiences practical and reinforce the innovation leadership credentials for which the PING brand is known.
I’m a terrible golfer, but with custom-fit clubs maybe there’s hope for me? Well, I probably still won’t be able to golf, but getting custom-fit clubs sure looks like fun!
Like to learn more?
- Learn more about what PING did and their nFlight app here.
- See a cool video that shows folks from PING talking through the app and showing demos here.
- Find an nFlight fitting location near you here!
John Mullinax is a Platform Strategy Advisor with Microsoft's DPE Team. Before joining Microsoft in 2006, John held a vartiety of positions at Ford Motor Company, most recently leading IT services strategy to support explosive business growth in China. Other positions included: Enterprise Architect, Application Portfolio Management, Technology Governance, and Product Manager. Prior to joining Ford, John earned his MBA at the University of Washington. Before that, he was Director of Elections for Douglas County, Washington, where he conducted the first Federal mail-ballot election in the USA. Subsequently, he joined the Secretary of State's office as a consultant working with county election officials in Washington state to improve operational effectiveness, integrity, and security (aka, to prevent the kind of debacle we saw in Florida in 2000).
