This is a two-part task. First part is about open source communication, second part is to install and run one of BRL-CAD's tools.

PART 1: For the first part, see the Voluntary Communication Checklist on our org profile page here: https://www.google-melange.com/gci/org/google/gci2014/brlcad

Simply do one or more of the checklist items and leave a comment here saying which you did. Provide some evidence that we can verify like if you talk on our IRC channel, let us know your username. If you join a mailing list, just leave a comment stating the first four letters of your e-mail address (please don't post your whole address). We encourage you to do all four!

PART 2: The second part of this task involves downloading, installing, and running BRL-CAD and then proving you got it working. You'll prove it by creating some really simple geometry, rendering it, and submitting a screenshot.

You have a choice of how to obtain our software, each with different learning challenges:

• BEST: You can download and compile directly from our repository: http://brlcad.org/wiki/Building_from_SVN
• EASY: You can download our Virtual Machine image: http://brlcad.org/wiki/Deuces#Getting_Started
• MEH: You can use a binary tarball: http://brlcad.org/d/download

Once you have BRL-CAD installed, you'll want to run either mged or archer. You can see our Intro to MGED on http://brlcad.org/wiki/Documentation for extensive tutorials on how to model, but here are some quick steps to get you going:

1. First, create a simple 512x512 black and white image that has your name in it somewhere. Any paint program will do here. You'll want to create white text on a black background.
2. Save that as a png image named hello.png
3. Convert your png image to a bw image by running our png-bw command (png-bw hello.png hello.bw). If you can't figure out how to do that on your system command line, this command on the mged prompt should work if you copy-paste it exactly as written into mged: exec \[ file join \[ bu_brlcad_root bin \] pix-bw \] hello.png \ hello.bw
4. Create your extruded bitmap geometry: in gcirocks.ebm ebm hello.bw 512 512 64
5. Render a pretty picture:
   B gcirocks.ebm
ae 35 25
zoom 1.5
l gcirocks.ebm
rt
6. You should see a rendering window pop up if everything else was okay. Take a full screenshot and submit it here.

Once you submit your screenshot, remember to leave a comment with details about which communication checklist item(s) you performed along with your evidence.

• http://brlcad.org/wiki/Compiling -- if you're trying to compile from source
• http://brlcad.org/wiki/Documentation -- intro to mged and quick ref command card
• http://brlcad.org/wiki/EBM -- more details on the ebm you are creating