Custom UI Enhances Intel’s Drone Light Show Design

Executive Summary 

Goal: Develop an intuitive and robust user interface to enable artists and professional teams to design and manage large-scale, drone-based light shows, outdoor and with up to 10,000 drones.  

Solution: Tietoevry delivered an integrated software platform that simplifies the orchestration of thousands of drones, hides operational complexity, and supports seamless integration with other production tools. 

Benefits: The new system has reduced the time and complexity of planning drone light shows from months to days. The solution enabled designing sophisticated aerial performances through a user-friendly interface and opened the door for broader commercial opportunities through faster delivery. 

Services delivered: Design, Cloud, Software engineering 

About the Partner 

Name: Intel

Location: USA

Industry: Semiconductors

Number of employees: 108,000+

Website: www.intel.com

Business Challenge 

The client aimed to streamline the complex, manual, and time-consuming process of creating entertainment shows with Intel technology powered drones. Their existing toolset involved a range of fragmented systems that resulted in challenges for the artists designing light shows, namely high preparation times and a steep learning curve.  

The primary goal of our collaboration was to create a convenient, easy-to-use interface that would allow creative teams to orchestrate highly complex drone swarm light shows, integrating multiple production elements and reducing the traditionally long planning and setup cycles. 

Solution & Business Value 

Tietoevry Create developed a specialized 3D editor to simplify and accelerate the creation of Intel-powered drone light shows. We ensured robust integration with production software, hardware, and on-site control systems, resulting in a unified workflow. This solution allowed artists to design drone light shows in a user-friendly environment with real-time 3D visualization of the terrain and show area.  

With the introduced automation, the preparation time for drone shows was reduced from 2-3 months to just 2-3 days. Visualized 3D terrains help with better show planning and obstacle avoidance.  

The benefits for artists include: 

• Creating high-quality drone light shows within days instead of months 
• Improved operational efficiency 
• Faster delivery to customers 
• Support for broader commercial opportunities 
• Minimized risks by enabling more precise planning. 

Technical Details 

To meet the project requirements, the solution combined powerful 3D rendering technologies, a modern interface framework, and rigorous performance optimization. The development team of 10 specialists included a project manager, application developers with 3D (OpenGL) experience, a UX/UI designer, and software testers. The team followed an agile, iterative approach, ensuring continuous improvement based on real-world testing and evolving business needs.  

Development approach 

• Agile methodology with iterative delivery model, adjusting technologies and the solution to new challenges when they appear. 
• Collaboration with Intel’s Product Owner and Technical Lead to ensure full alignment with the requirements and expectations from the client side. 

Frontend & visualization 

• Qt/QML – developed a highly responsive, artist-friendly UI for intuitive drone show design. 
• OpenGL – powered real-time 3D visualization of drone formations and terrain environments, allowing precise planning and obstacle avoidance. 

Performance optimization 

• Custom optimization to support up to 10,000 drones in a single show. 
• Addressed major performance bottlenecks during scaling, ensuring stable operation even with large data loads. 

Special features 

• 3D Terrain Mapping Integration: Enabled show planning with full environmental context, including topography and obstacles. 
• Workflow Automation: Consolidated multiple commercial 3D tools into a single, user-friendly editor for faster design and setup. 

Testing & validation 

• Extensive performance and scalability testing throughout the development. 
• Continuous real-world simulation of large drone fleets to ensure system responsiveness and meet defined KPIs. 

Tietoevry delivered a working solution within 9 months, with subsequent feature extension, optimization, and maintenance. The solution empowers non-technical artists to design complex aerial performances with ease and precision, significantly accelerating time-to-market. 

Technologies & Tools Used 

Qt/QML 

OpenGL 

Agile