Google Summer of Code 2010

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Overview

The Google Summer of Code (GSOC) 2010 is a program providing $5000 summer stipends to students contributing to Free and Open Source Software.

You can see our Google Summer of Code 2007 Report and Google Summer of Code 2008 Report to get a feel for K-3D's past participation in GSOC. Of course, normal development on K-3D continues as it has for the past 15 years: anyone is welcome to browse through the following project suggestions, develop their own projects, and contribute to K-3D at any time!

Resources

Project suggestions

The ideas below are not concrete projects yet. These are just the areas that we feel to be most critical. Applying for a project from this list means you will have to write up a complete proposal of what exactly you want to implement. If you are really enthusiastic an idea that does not fit into the categories below, don't hesitate to discuss it on the list, chances are good it will be accepted.

Texturing tools

The K-3D core supports materials and textures. In particular, the mesh format can handle texture coordinates. In order to complete texturing support, a set of plugins is needed to apply texture maps, set texture coordinates and preview the results.

Polygon modeling

K-3D has a series of plugins used in polygon modeling, such as ExtrudeFaces, BevelPoints, SubdivideFaces, ... This set of plugins can still be expanded, examples include extrusion along a path and beveling of edges. More advanced work in this area would consist of working on the user interface of existing plugins, for examples adding viewport manipulators when a plugin transforms geometry, or adding interactive tools to create points, edges and faces from scratch.

NURBS modeling

During SoC 2008, an excellent set of basic NURBS curve and surface tools was added. We are still lacking some more advanced NURBS functionality, however, such as:

  • NURBS booleans
  • Beveling
  • A bi-rail
  • Curve and surface offsetting
  • More flexible trimming curve support

Animation

We do currently support keyframe animation with linear interpolation, but any form of editing the keyframe data or the interpolation method is currently lacking. Likewise, essential animation tools such as IK, bones, follow path, ... are missing. Plenty of room for project ideas in this area!

File import/export

SoC 2008 saw the addition of many import/export plugins. These can still be refined, so we have better support to import/export complete scenes, more support for data other than polygons, better texture support, ...

User Interface

General work on the user interface could include improving the existing panels, such as adding filtering/searching to the node list, pipeline visualisation and editing, ... The Python editor and shell could also be much improved, with features such as code completion