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==BRL-CAD Accomplishments : GCI 2012==
  
== Ready for Publication ==
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[http://www.google-melange.com/gci/org/google/gci2012/brlcad Google Code -In 2012] brought 69 budding new shoots and branches to the mighty BRL-CAD tree, and the canopy of warmth and love offered by the community helped them blossom and bloom in the 7 weeks of the program . With a few snips, a little trimming and pruning, they have learned, innovated, created and contributed to one of the largest free and open source communities in the world, and have contributed to a software that will touch many people around the world. They now have their roots planted in the BRL-CAD community with the successful completion of their tasks and are ready to shelter budding shoots to come!
These articles are ready for publication. Release notes should be posted after tarballs, ideally the last or first week of a monthOther publications should be scheduled one or two weeks later, ideally on the second or third week of the month.
 
  
Note: if you see a comment indicating that a section is FROZEN, any changes you make in that section may go unnoticed as the article is being prepared for distribution. If you find errors in a FROZEN article, go ahead and correct the article but contact Sean (brlcad on freenode [[IRC]]) who may be able to incorporate changes during final publication.
+
We had 66 students from 36 countries complete 178 tasks in the 7 week contest. Students worked with BRL-CAD on coding, documentation, training, user interface, research, outreach tasks, and quality assurance tasks.  
  
'''''Move from Final Review to Here When Ready'''''
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Akshay Kashyap and Cezar El-Nazli were among the 20 lucky and hardworking [http://google-opensource.blogspot.in/2013/06/google-code-in-grand-prize-winners.html grand prize winners of GCI-2012] who received a trip to Google’s Mountain View, California, USA Headquarters for themselves and a parent or legal guardian for an award ceremony, an opportunity to meet with Google engineers, explore the Google campus and have a fun day in the San Francisco, California sun.
  
 +
[http://www.google-melange.com/gci/homepage/google/gci2013 Google Code In 2013] has been already announced. If you are of the age 13-17 years, a pre-university student, this is the best opportunity for you to grab and get your hands on and step into the whole new world of software development and maintenance. Are You Ready ?
  
------
+
More information on what is Google Code-In, how you can participate, what are the exciting prizes for you, etc. is available [http://brlcad.org/wiki/Google_Code_In here].
  
==Final Review==
+
For further queries mail us on our [http://brlcad.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists mailing list] or contact us via [http://brlcad.org/wiki/IRC IRC]
  
====Google Code In 2014====
+
== Ready for Publication ==
Out of only 12 selected, we're very proud to announce that BRL-CAD is participating in the 2014 Google Code-In (GCI) program! Complementary to the highly successful Google Summer of Code program for university students, GCI is a contest to encourage pre-university students (age 13-17) to get involved with open source.This is the third consecutive year, BRLCAD is accepted as a mentoring organization.  
+
These articles are ready for publication.  Release notes should be posted after tarballs, ideally the last or first week of a month. Other publications should be scheduled one or two weeks later, ideally on the second or third week of the month.
  
Read more shall be redirected to -> http://brlcad.org/wiki/GCI2014
+
Note: if you see a comment indicating that a section is FROZEN, any changes you make in that section may go unnoticed as the article is being prepared for distribution. If you find errors in a FROZEN article, go ahead and correct the article but contact Sean (brlcad on freenode [[IRC]]) who may be able to incorporate changes during final publication.
  
====Geometry Viewer====
+
==== Move from Final Review to Here When Ready====
Geometry Viewer-
+
------
 +
==== Draft Release Note ====
  
<b>What is a geometry viewer?</b>
+
<b>BRL-CAD Release 7.24.0 </b>
  
It’s a service which allows users to manage all there geometry files. It can upload and view BRL-CAD geometry files in a different format so that others can edit it. But it’s currently under construction.
+
After nearly an entire year's worth of intense collaborative effort, the 7.24.0 major release of BRL-CAD is now available for download!  This is the alpha release unveiling of Archer/MGED, a preliminary interface update to BRL-CAD's graphical geometry editor. As alpha software, this new MGED prototype aims to provide functional feature parity with the antecedent MGED interface while introducing various changes. Some highlights include an integrated graphical tree view, a single window framework, drag and drop geometry editing, information panels, shortcut buttons, improved polygonal mesh and 2D sketch editing, level of detail wireframes, NURBS shaded display support, and much more. Prior to upcoming beta testing where the emphasis is predominantly on stability and usability, this alpha status solicits feedback from community on capability and features.
  
<b>It’s the equivalent to?</b>
+
This release also includes various improvements to BRL-CAD's ray tracing infrastructure including CPU thread affinity locking for faster performance, more consistent grazing hit behavior, expanded volume and surface area calculations, numerous bug fixes, and more robust NURBS evaluation.  Following BRL-CAD's interface deprecation policy (see CHANGES file), the Jove text editor is no longer being bundled.  Various converters including the STEP, Patch, and 3DM importers received robustness improvements.
  
It’s like a Facebook for files where you can share other files with the public and then they can edit, change or fix the application to make it smother.
+
Since the previous 7.22.0 release, the following user-visible changes have occurred:
  
<b>Why is it used?</b>
+
<b>Additions:</b>
 +
* -b option to set tpkg network packet size
 +
* arbn surface area and volume to analyze command
 +
* epa surface area and volume to analyze command
 +
* eto surface area and volume to analyze command
 +
* gqa -q quiet option to suppress 'was not hit'
 +
* hyp centroid and volume output to 'analyze'
 +
* level-of-detail wireframe support to mged/archer
 +
* manual page for bot_sync, bot_flip, bot_split
 +
* manual page for existing mged reid command
 +
* manual page for running rtarea within mged
 +
* plate mode BoT support to 'bot_merge' command
 +
* support for editing 2D sketch objects in archer
 +
* support for wireframe drawing of 'hyp' labels
 +
* initial NURBS shaded display and tessellation support
 +
* new mouse-input unpushed matrix edit option in archer
 +
* level-of-detail mged configuration dialog, under Tools
  
It’s used to allow the user to become more organised and make the user interface easier to follow and understand.
+
<b>Improvements:</b>
 +
* 3dm-g output and invalid geometry support
 +
* BoT mesh editing interface in archer
 +
* Linux platform application and file icons
 +
* Linux ray tracing via cpu thread affinity
 +
* Linux support for multiple hardware displays
 +
* Mac, BSD, & Windows ray tracing performance
 +
* documentation consistency and authorship info
 +
* gqa performance on parallel SMP hardware
 +
* help option consistency across numerous tools
 +
* large file support for the patch-g importer
 +
* ray tracing behavior for grazing rays
 +
* robustness of the step-g geometry importer
 +
* support for NURBS with big uv-domain changes
 +
* 'idents' command no longer reports negative booleans
 +
* modified gqa to report all missed regions
 +
* openNURBS updated to version 5.0 (2012-10-24)
 +
* output from g-var no longer prints 'fwrite' messages
 +
* g_diff gives non-zero return code if .g files differ
 +
* quell pix-png gAMA chunk warning defaulting to unset
  
<b>What is needed to access this service?</b>
+
<b>Fixed:</b>
 +
* File->New deprecation error in archer
 +
* TIE perpendicular face mesh evaluation failure
 +
* TIE raytracing bugs shotlining plate-mode BoTs
 +
* asc2g and mged empty revolve object crashes
 +
* bounding box size calculation for pipe geometry
 +
* bug during pipe editing with working units set
 +
* corrupted tessellation pipe export bug
 +
* crash in step-g tool importing AP214 entities
 +
* crash revolving empty sketch objects
 +
* crash when parsing invalid shader parameters
 +
* crash when running screengrab in archer
 +
* gqa to not report overlap regions as zero hits
 +
* graphics window z-clipping bug in mged
 +
* infinite loop raytracing subtracted lights
 +
* memory leak in bot_condense
 +
* memory leak when working with pipe primitives
 +
* mged 'dbupgrade' -permissions error on windows
 +
* mged interactive object translation keypoint bug
 +
* mged lesson 15 toy truck 'inside' ordering bug
 +
* nirt high object count failure on Windows
 +
* patch-g -f input file permissions failure
 +
* random number SMP bug affecting rt and adrt
 +
* search command bombing on v4 database file
 +
* typographical errors in numerous tools and docs
 +
* uninstallable Linux RPM package on Fedora 18
  
All you need on your computer with a Web GL supported browser, BRL-CAD, three.js and a Linux Apache MySQL PHP (LAMP).
+
<b>Removed:</b>
 +
* jove (see jove.emacs for compatibility bindings)
  
<b>How it works?</b>
+
Thank you to all that have contributed towards this release including <i>Aaron Keesing, Akshay Kashyap, Andrei Popescu, Daniel Roßberg, Tom Browder, Carl Moore, Cliff Yapp, Jordi Sayol, Chris Dueck, Keith Bowman, Nick Reed, Bob Parker, Richard Weiss, and Sean Morrison</i>.  Special thanks to GSoC student <i>Kesha Shah</i> for her efforts helping prepare release notes as well.
  
Using BRL-CAD it changes the format to OBJ and loads it through the three.js all in all it converts then loads.
+
This is a backwards-compatible source with binaries provided for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.  Please visit our website to download the latest version: http://brlcad.org/d/download
  
 +
----
  
<b>Advantages</b>
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== "Improving BRL-CAD's networking library":Andrei - Constantin Popescu ==
 +
by: Plamen Nikiforov
  
•Easier for the user to manage
+
Andrei - Constantin Popescu is a second year undergraduate at Polytechnic University of Bucharest, studying at the computer science department. Here is an interview about Andreis Google Summer of Code project.
 +
Plamen(Pl): How did you found out about BRL-CAD and why did you chose to them?
  
•Allows all user to see the file as it converts the format
+
Andrei(An): I heard about BRL-CAD when I was searching for a Google Summer of Code project to do. After doing some research on their website regarding Google Summer of Code ideas, several interested me particularly.
 +
The language I am currently strongest in is C  and I am also interested in computer graphics, this motivated me towards applying for BRL-CAD. Another key aspect was that the BRL-CAD mentoring community was very friendly and helpful towards me.
  
•Makes sharing easier and safer due to the fact you still have overall control
 
  
•It allows the skills of strangers to improve your application safely
+
Pl: Why did you choose "Improving BRL-CAD's networking library" to be your project?
  
•Its currently under construction so more features will be add
+
An: The first project idea I proposed was " Code reduction". First, I looked at this project at Sean's suggestion. There were several reasons why I chose this project idea : I was taking a networking course and it would help me consolidate my knowledge and the performance testing seemed a more interesting problem to investigate.
  
By Mohamed Hammeda
 
  
====Alexander Lotsu: Wanted - Software Maintainer for Windows Binary Platform====
+
Pl: What were your aims of the project?
Do you enjoy correcting faults?
 
  
Would you like to make improvements to software that vast numbers of users will benefit from?
+
An: My initial aims were to investigate and fix any performance bottleneck regarding transfer speed for various file sizes and package sizes, test the code integrity of networking library and eliminating as many unhandled exceptions as well as eliminating global variables from the networking library.
  
Would you like to enhance your resume and gain wider experience? Do you have some spare time?
+
“Here are some of Andreis performance measurements for different package sizes:
 +
Package size 1 – 2048 - http://i.imgur.com/OPum5.png
 +
Package size 2048 – 4194304 - http://i.imgur.com/fH4rL.png
 +
Package size 1 – 4194304 - http://i.imgur.com/AXUpN.png ”
  
We need a software maintainer/release maintainer. Maintainers are needed for free and open source software to perform a variety of tasks.  As BRL-CAD is a cross-platform system it has maintainers allocated to many binary platforms but does not currently have one for Windows. We are looking for someone to fill this voluntary role which is critical when releasing software.
 
  
A maintainer is someone who is basically willing to support creating the release for a particular platform (In this case Windows). Typical responsibilities include building source code into a binary package, patching and investigating platform issues, naming and announcing a release.
+
Pl: Has this project helped your skills improve?
  
To find out more or to indicate your interest, announce your interest either through:
+
An: Definetly! The most important aspect is that I greatly improved my communication skills. Aside of that, I also improved my capacity to work in a team, developed the ability to work with a large code base and of course improved my implementation skills.
  
BRL-CAD devel Mailing List - http://sourceforge.net/p/brlcad/mailman/brlcad-devel/
+
Pl: Would you continue to contribute to BRL-CAD?
 +
An: Of course ! I continued to contribute even after Google Summer of Code. Even if my contributions aren't as numerous as I would like because of my crowded academic schedule, I am trying to contribute for as much as possible. Contributing to BRL-CAD helps me improve knowledge as well as providing code that is actually useful for a large number of people.
  
BRL-CAD IRC Channel - http://brlcad.org/wiki/IRC
 
  
Further Information
+
====Google Summer of Code: Jianbang Wu====
 +
by: John
  
 If you wish for more detail about releases on BRL-CAD, visit this link: http://svn.code.sf.net/p/brlcad/code/brlcad/trunk/HACKING
+
This article is based on some questions I asked Jianbang and in his profile page.
(Go to the section on releases near the bottom of the page)
 
  
 For a definition of a Software/Release maintainer, visit this link:
+
Jianbang Wu (also known as Phoenix) participated in BRL-CAD development during Google Summer of Code 2012. His work was "to convert implicit Constructive Solid Geometry (CGS) primitives to boundary representations (BREPs)". He is a sophomore student in Peking University, China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_maintainer
+
His skills involve C/C++, Object Oriented Programming, data structures, algorithms, math, and image processing.
  
 +
Jianbang chose to apply to BRL-CAD because "The mentors of BRL-CAD are really nice. :)" and because he loves computer graphics and math.
 +
He started working without any Computer Aided Design (CAD) software experience, which he learned during the summer.
 +
He worked on two projects:
  
Article written by Alexander Lotsu
+
First, he followed Cliff's suggestion: "Implicit to NURBS conversion". This consisted in the conversion from implicit primitives to Non Uniform Rational Basis Spline (NURBS) primitives. In this project he also modified some unfinished conventions and added some new primitives.
 +
Since he finished this task before the mid-term evaluation, he decided to make a follow-up: "NURBS surface-surface intersection".
  
====Google Code In 2013 Updates ====
+
Finally, he suggests future Google Summer of Code students to "Follow your interest, choose the project you like, and you will find Google Summer of Code really an excellent experience".
  
The Google Code-in is a contest to introduce pre-university students (ages 13-17) to the many kinds of contributions that make open source software development possible. This is the second consecutive year when the esteemed open source solid modeling tool, BRL-CAD is accepted to participate in Google Code-In, out of the total of 10 organizations chosen. 
+
You can check out some images related with his work here:
  
Many of you would be wondering about the participation of BRL-CAD in GCI so far and hence, I came up with this post. The contest runs from November 18, 2013 to January 6, 2014. Its December,15 today, where we are exactly half-way on the journey. This year BRL-CAD has received an over-whelming response from young smart talented kids from all around the world, where they are contributing to small itty-bitty tasks of not more than 72 hours based in various domains related to software development and maintenance like Coding, Documentation and Training, Quality Assurance, User Interface and Outreach and Research.
+
http://brlcad.org/wiki/User:Phoenix/GSoc2012/Reports#Test_Results
  
After many task claims, reclaims, rejection, improvements, exchange of ideas and views between students and mentors via comments, IRC and mailing list and then acceptance of each task, till date, 87 tasks with minutely observed perfection have been closed successfully. 3 tasks are with status 'Needs Work', which means one of the mentors has sent back those tasks for more work. 4 tasks are on the to-be-reviewed list of mentors, 7 tasks currently claimed and 21 tasks are reopened and 85 tasks open with a total of 207 tasks.
+
Related with his first work:
 +
* m35.g: component (left: implicit + csg, right: brep + csg)
 +
[[Image:M35.implicit.png]]      [[Image:M35.brep.png]]
  
I hope the young brains are enjoying while they work on the kinds of tasks they are comfortable. It is not just about working on tasks, it means much more than that. I bet, being a part of an awesome, cool and one of the most friendly open source organizations and working in collaboration with fantastic perks all across the planet Earth at such a small age will be an astronomical experience for participants.  
+
Related with his second work:
 +
* The intersection curves (green) of a tgc (red) and an epa (blue). (Two segments)
 +
[[Image:Tgc epa.png]]
  
A huge thanks to all participants for making it a huge and happening contest. Thanks to all mentors for adding tasks time-to-time to meet the demand and supply curve of fresh new tasks. Special thanks to Sean, the man without whom BRL-CAD's participation in GCI is hard to imagine. All the best kids for rest of the contest. A ticket to Google’s Mountain View, California, USA Headquarters is awaiting for two grand-prize winners. Good Luck ! :)
+
John is a Google Code-In student living in Portugal. He's favourite language is Python although he's considering to widen his knowledge to C.
  
====GCI 2013 Quick Update/ Highlights (2)====
+
==== Linux Release Packaging Process: A mission for Jordi Sayol ====
 
+
By: John
With 12 days, 2 hours remaining for the task to end, i.e. 33% of the contest still remaining, we have got pretty amazing statistics until now.
 
 
 
After many task claims, reclaims, rejection, improvements, exchange of ideas and views between students and mentors via comments, IRC and mailing list and then acceptance of each task, till date, 162 tasks with minutely observed perfection have been closed successfully. 7 tasks are with status 'Needs Work', which means one of the mentors has sent back those tasks for more work. 2 tasks are on the to-be-reviewed list of mentors, 4 tasks currently claimed and 73 tasks open with a total of 247 tasks.
 
 
 
We have already crossed 25% more than that of the last year's record. Let wait and watch how far can we go and break our own records.
 
 
 
Good luck Kids !
 
 
 
Keep Contributing to FOSS !
 
 
 
====BRL-CAD Accomplishments : GCI 2012====
 
 
 
[http://www.google-melange.com/gci/org/google/gci2012/brlcad Google Code -In 2012] brought 69 budding new shoots and branches to the mighty BRL-CAD tree, and the canopy of warmth and love offered by the community helped them blossom and bloom in the 7 weeks of the program . With a few snips, a little trimming and pruning, they have learned, innovated, created and contributed to one of the largest free and open source communities in the world, and have contributed to a software that will touch many people around the world. They now have their roots  planted in the BRL-CAD community with the successful completion of their tasks and are ready to shelter budding shoots to come!
 
 
 
We had 66 students from 36 countries complete 178 tasks in the 7 week contest.  Students worked with BRL-CAD on coding, documentation, training, user interface, research, outreach tasks, and quality assurance tasks.
 
 
 
Akshay Kashyap and Cezar El-Nazli were among the 20 lucky and hardworking [http://google-opensource.blogspot.in/2013/06/google-code-in-grand-prize-winners.html grand prize winners of GCI-2012] who received a trip to Google’s Mountain View, California, USA Headquarters for themselves and a parent or legal guardian for an award ceremony, an opportunity to meet with Google engineers, explore the Google campus and have a fun day in the San Francisco, California sun.
 
  
[http://www.google-melange.com/gci/homepage/google/gci2013 Google Code In 2013] has been already announced. If you are of the age 13-17 years, a pre-university student, this is the best opportunity for you to grab and get your hands on and step into the whole new world of software development and maintenance. Are You Ready ?
+
Jordi Sayol is the man behind the automation of the BRL-CAD Linux release packaging process, which he recently finished. His work continues the one made previously by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo in .dbm packages.
  
More information on what is Google Code-In, how you can participate, what are the exciting prizes for you, etc. is available [http://brlcad.org/wiki/Google_Code_In here].
+
This article is based on some questions I asked him and on an interview made to Jordi by Gala, a Google Code-in student.
  
For further queries mail us on our [http://brlcad.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists mailing list] or contact us via [http://brlcad.org/wiki/IRC IRC]
+
Jordi has been working with BRL-CAD since January 2011,with his Linux experience (as advanced user) as his only companion. By that time, he started to collaborate on-line with other BRL-CAD team members.
  
------
+
With such a massive project, which has millions of lines of code, he decided to take as his responsability the building of binary packages for Linux systems, since he's not a programmer.
  
==== "Improving BRL-CAD's networking library":Andrei - Constantin Popescu ====
+
In both interviews, he explains quite accurately the process of making those. He has made two scripts that automate the whole work. What the scripts do is to handle all the pre-building proccess and then create the packages. "In fact the building job is done by debhelper to create deb packages, and the rpmbuild command to create rpm packages. The scripts tries to ensures that all dependencies needed by these commands are available, copy Linux specific files, create configuration files, etc. before building the packages".
by: Plamen Nikiforov
+
The scripts allow anyone to easily create their own deb/rpm packages as needed", since they "create deb/rpm packages for the host architecture where they are executed".
 +
This allows BRL-CAD to be distributed Debian-like and Fedora-like systems, which means a great variety of platforms where BRL-CAD will be able to work. Unfortunately, since Fedora and OpenSUSE don't share the same nomenclature, their rpm packages must be separate ones.
 +
The scripts can be found at the "sh" folder when you download the BRL-CAD sources.
  
Andrei - Constantin Popescu is a second year undergraduate at Polytechnic University of Bucharest, studying at the computer science department. Here is an interview about Andreis Google Summer of Code project.
+
Since he is not a programmer (only an advanced Linux user), he won't develop other parts of the code, but I think all the BRL-CAD community can be grateful for what he has done.
Plamen(Pl): How did you found out about BRL-CAD and why did you chose to them?
 
  
Andrei(An): I heard about BRL-CAD when I was searching for a Google Summer of Code project to do. After doing some research on their website regarding Google Summer of Code ideas, several interested me particularly.
+
by John.
The language I am currently strongest in is C  and I am also interested in computer graphics, this motivated me towards applying for BRL-CAD. Another key aspect was that the BRL-CAD mentoring community was very friendly and helpful towards me.
 
  
 +
John is a Google Code-In student living in Portugal. He's favourite language is Python although he's considering to widen his knowledge to C.
  
Pl: Why did you choose "Improving BRL-CAD's networking library" to be your project?
+
Gala Taylor is a 2012 Google Code-In participant. Although she has used various Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) products over the years, and has contributed example files and tutorials to several projects, this is the first time she has actively participated in the development of FOSS code. Gala is currently in 9th grade, and her favorite computer language is Java.
  
An: The first project idea I proposed was " Code reduction". First, I looked at this project at Sean's suggestion. There were several reasons why I chose this project idea : I was taking a networking course and it would help me consolidate my knowledge and the performance testing seemed a more interesting problem to investigate.
+
==== Gala Taylor: New BRL-CAD Linux Release Packaging Process Automation ====
 +
By: Gala Taylor
  
 +
BRL-CAD supports Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE, and other Linux distributions. Jordi Sayol recently finished automating the BRL-CAD Linux release packaging process, and he took some time out to chat with Gala Taylor about it - and also answer some question about what it's like to work on the BRL-CAD project.
  
Pl: What were your aims of the project?
+
'''Gala Taylor (GT)''': How long have you been working on the BRL-CAD project?
  
An: My initial aims were to investigate and fix any performance bottleneck regarding transfer speed for various file sizes and package sizes, test the code integrity of networking library and eliminating as many unhandled exceptions as well as eliminating global variables from the networking library.
+
'''Jordi Sayol (JS)''': I've been involved with the BRL-CAD project since January 2011.
  
“Here are some of Andreis performance measurements for different package sizes:
+
'''GT''': How much education and experience were required to prepare you to contribute to the BRL-CAD project?
Package size 1 – 2048 - http://i.imgur.com/OPum5.png
 
Package size 2048 – 4194304 - http://i.imgur.com/fH4rL.png
 
Package size 1 – 4194304 - http://i.imgur.com/AXUpN.png ”
 
  
 +
'''JS''': My experience is just as an advanced Linux user.
  
Pl: Has this project helped your skills improve?
+
'''GT''': Do you need to physically meet with the other team members in order to contribute to the BRL-CAD project, or is it sufficient to work on-line?
  
An: Definetly! The most important aspect is that I greatly improved my communication skills. Aside of that, I also improved my capacity to work in a team, developed the ability to work with a large code base and of course improved my implementation skills.
+
'''JS''': All of my collaboration is done on-line.
  
Pl: Would you continue to contribute to BRL-CAD?
+
'''GT''': The BRL-CAD project is a collection of over four hundred tools, utilities and applications, with over a million lines of source code. With such a massive and complex system, how do you decide what to work on? Is it necessary to understand all that code in order to contribute to the project?
An: Of course ! I continued to contribute even after Google Summer of Code. Even if my contributions aren't as numerous as I would like because of my crowded academic schedule, I am trying t
 
  
== Initial Drafts ==
+
'''JS''': My responsibility is focused on building binary packages of BRL-CAD for Linux systems.
These are incomplete articles being worked on.  Short 250 to 500-word articles (not counting tables, images, etc) are usually perfect.
 
  
[[File:BRL-CAD Primitives Chart.png|thumb|128px|Grouped chart of all supported BRL-CAD primitives]]
+
'''GT''': Besides the release processing work which is described in the HACKING file, can you walk me through the process of actually transforming a developer’s checked-in source code into an .rpm or .deb that is ready to be downloaded and installed?
==== Mitchell Roberts: Chart of all Primitives ====
 
  
BRL-CAD supports 37 geometric primitive solids. A database containing one example of each created and arranged into a chart. Each colored rectangle in the background corresponds to a different type of primitive (ex: the red group contains cones and cylinders). Primitives that fall under multiple categories, like the pipe (made of cylinders and toroids) are contained by multiple background rectangles. The ars and bot examples did not raytrace correctly, but are continuing to be worked on.
+
'''JS''': It's quite simple. I have created two bash scripts that automate this process. The "sh/make_deb.sh" script creates a deb package installable on Debian-like systems. This currently includes Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and other distributions. The "sh/make_rpm.sh" script creates an rpm package for Fedora-like systems. This includes Fedora, Centos, Redhat, and some other distributions, or OpenSUSE, depending on the system where it is built. There are separate rpm packages for Fedora and OpenSUSE because they do not share the same nomenclature on their packages. Note also that both scripts create deb/rpm packages for the host architecture where they are executed, and that the results are currently only tested on x86_32 and x86_64 hosts.
  
The database can be used not only for a demonstration of BRL-CAD's primitives and their unique uses, but also for regression testing. Outputs from raytracing functions like rtWeight and rtArea can be compared to established normals to ensure changes to the source code do not cause unwanted changes to the way any primitives are raytraced. In the future, a tool to create the database automatically will hopefully be created and added to BRL-CAD's regression testing suite.
+
With these scripts, anyone can easily create their own deb/rpm packages as needed. This is especially useful if the user wants to install BRL-CAD on a very old system, maybe requiring special compilation for specific graphic cards drivers, etc.
  
==== Physics Simulation System ====
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'''GT''': Thank your for your time today and your contributions to BRL-CAD, Mr. Sayol!
  
BRL-CAD includes a Bullet-based rigid-body physics simulation system. The system takes advantage of BRL-CAD's ray tracing API to detect collisions between arbitrarily-shaped geometry, which are then passed to Bullet for physics calculations. The current system consists of a working demo allowing one object to be subjected to gravity and then collide with a fixed "ground" object.
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'''JS''': It was a pleasure.
  
Recently, the physics system has received some attention as BRL-CAD works towards support for geometric constraints and joint systems. The goal is to expand the demo into a useful physics system capable of real-time simulation displayable in the Archer interface. In addition to various bug fixes and performance improvements, changes that will be merged soon include a flexible way for users to define simulation scenes using BRL-CAD's attribute system along with a simple combination-based scene description.
 
  
A video of the improved simulation system can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzaKWzntnmc
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Please visit the BRL-CAD project website for more information: http://brlcad.org
  
==== Documentation Redux ====
 
  
BRL-CAD was selected to participate in the 2013 Google Summer of Code '''[http://www.flossmanuals.org/news/2013-doc-camp-call-proposals Doc Camp]'''.  A team of contributors got together in California, brainstormed, and wrote an entire book for BRL-CAD in just a few days.  They created a guide for contributing to BRL-CAD.
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'''Jordi Sayol''' is the maintainer of the BRL-CAD Linux release packaging process.
  
[[File:DocCamp_WorkingHard.jpg|thumb|right|256px|BRL-CAD doc team getting to work writing a book from scratch in less than three days]]
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'''Gala Taylor''' is a 2012 Google Code-In participant. Although she has used various Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) products over the years, and has contributed example files and tutorials to several projects, this is the first time she has actively participated in the development of FOSS code. Gala is currently in 9th grade, and her favorite computer language is Java.
  
Contrary to and perhaps because of longstanding efforts, people interested in improving BRL-CAD sometimes find themselves lost in a sea of information.  In all, BRL-CAD has more than a million words of documentation across hundreds of manual pages, dozens of tutorials and examples, hundreds of wiki pages, dozens of technical papers, and other resources.  It's a lot, created over decades of development.
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----
  
Over the course of a week in October, members from our community participated in something fresh.  Something different.
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==== Kyle Bodt: Ronja ====
  
[[File:DocCamp_TopicWall.jpg|thumb|right|256px|Unconference brainstorming stickies]]
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http://brlcad.org/wiki/Ronja
  
A team of individuals traveled to the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, to participate in a 2-part event: an unconference and a book sprint. Teams for GNOME, OpenMRS, and BRL-CAD arrived on the Google campus and talked about techniques, tools, formats, documenters, and more. By the end of the week, seven individuals from four different countries, three continents, and one oceanic island produced a book for BRL-CAD more than 100 pages in length.
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Ronja (Reasonable Optical Near Joint Access) is an innovative piece of equipment that utilizes reliable optical data links to create a current communication range of 1.4 km and a speed of 10Mbps full duplex that can be used as a general purpose wireless link for virtually any networking project. This is a very important project for Twibright Labs, a small group of computer science graduate students operating out of Charles University in Prague in the Czech Republic. The group specializes in the usage of Free Software and User Controlled Technology Development.
  
As free open source software, one of BRL-CAD's greatest strengths is that anyone can get involved and directly contribute. You can make it better.  This new book focuses on that aspect and introduces people to the project while providing detailed information for developers, writers, artists, and other potential contributors.
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The primary output for the Ronja project is a design. The lab does not intend to manufacture and sell the hardware that is being designed but wants to engage in open source development of the technology. The philosophy surrounding User Controlled Technology is the ideal that the end-user is provided with unrestricted access to the intellectual property surrounding the technology, including the tools that are being used to create it. One tool playing an integral part in the development of the Ronja designs is BRL-CAD. All of the models that Twibright labs use to display the different variants of their Ronja concept were created with the help of BRL-CAD. BRL-CAD has allowed the members of Twibright labs to create instructional diagrams so that the users and builders of their open source technology will be able to have the latest information with regard to the proper construction of a Ronja unit. The interactive geometry editor and ray-tracers in BRL-CAD are an integral part in the communication of design plans for Twibright labs and enables them to connect with the users, who are the driving force behind the User Controlled Technology ideal.
 
 
[[File:DocCamp_Relaxing.jpg|thumb|right|256px|Fresh air break with Allen Gunn of Aspiration and Adam Hyde of FLOSS Manuals]]
 
  
This new effort kick-starts a campaign to dramatically improve BRL-CAD's documentation, starting with this new contributor's guide.
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----
  
Attending the camp provided an exciting opportunity to get a grasp on new techniques for documenting and sharing information about our software, hopefully in ways that help us grow our communityBRL-CAD's team included Sean Morrison, Eric Edwards, Cliff Yapp, Harmanpreet Singh, Check Nyah, Isaac Kamga, and Scott Nesbitt.  Thank you to Google for their sponsorship, [http://aspirationtech.org/ Aspiration] for magnificently framing the event, and [http://www.flossmanuals.org/ FLOSS Manuals] for directing the production.
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== Initial Drafts ==
 +
These are incomplete articles being worked on.  Short 250 to 500-word articles (not counting tables, images, etc) are usually perfect.
  
[[File:DocCamp_Team.png|thumb|right|384px|The BRL-CAD Doc Camp Team]]
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==== Google Doc Camp ====
  
 +
BRL-CAD is one of three organizations,among openMRS and Gnome, accepted to participate in the 2013 Google Doc Camp taking place at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California.
 +
Our team was made up of Sean, Cliff, Eric, Harmanpreet ,Check and two free agents - Scott Nesbitt and Isaac Kamga.
  
 
==== Anurag Murty: Voxelizing Geometry ====
 
==== Anurag Murty: Voxelizing Geometry ====
Line 409: Line 463:
  
 
Initial progress on the integration of ADRT's libtie "triangle intersection engine" with LIBRT.
 
Initial progress on the integration of ADRT's libtie "triangle intersection engine" with LIBRT.
 
==== Tan YuGin: BRL-CAD's Code Hardening Efforts ====
 
 
A/N: Written as a Google Code-in 2013 task.
 
 
BRL-CAD is a large-scale software based on decades of development and contains over a million lines of code. Its contributors are numerous and come from countries all over the world. Any project of such magnitude is bound to face problems with ensuring consistency and high standards across its various aspects.
 
 
The core team behind BRL-CAD, however, has sought to alleviate such issues as far as possible. In a ‘HACKING’ document included with the rest of the software, the team has provided universal guidelines and good practices for all BRL-CAD code, in areas such as code formatting, organization, and conventions. BRL-CAD also encourages the use of various tools to make it easier for them to check for problems or errors in their work. These tools include the Simian similarity analyzer, a program that detects duplicated code and allows developers to refactor it into space-saving functions, and the built-in CPPCHECK-CLEANUP tool, which checks for issues such as stylistic errors or unused functions.
 
 
[[Image:Simian_analysis_sample_output.PNG]]
 
 
''Sample output of Simian similarity analyzer. Screenshot courtesy of BRL-CAD wiki.''
 
 
[[Image:CPPCHECK-CLEANUP_sample_output.PNG]]
 
 
''Sample output of CPPCHECK-CLEANUP tool. Screenshot courtesy of BRL-CAD wiki.''
 
 
BRL-CAD enforces the practice of strict compilation, treating all of the compiler’s warnings as matters that have to be resolved before development can proceed. Any detected issues that are in actual fact errors can thus be fixed. Even incorrectly detected errors are often due to weaknesses in the code and can also be dealt with.
 
 
Finally, BRL-CAD has since 2006 participated in the Coverity Scan Initiative, where a thorough source code analysis is performed and a list of detected problems generated. In 2012, a team of core developers met up in person and fixed over fifteen hundred of the issues reported in the latest scan. This reduced BRL-CAD’s defect density to just 0.22 defects per thousand lines of code- less than a quarter of the industry average.
 
 
[[Image:CoverityExample2.png]]
 
 
''Coverity analysis showing secure coding suggestions. Image courtesy of BRL-CAD wiki.''
 
 
Through a range of comprehensive guidelines and tools that help contributors to ensure that their code abides by these rules, BRL-CAD can thus be developed and contributed to by numerous programmers from across the globe while simultaneously maintaining a high standard and consistency of code, ultimately resulting in a feature-packed yet well-refined software for the larger community.
 
 
==== Anita Leung: Choose BRL-CAD ====
 
 
https://vimeo.com/83215836
 
 
BRL-CAD is a powerful modeling system consisting of more than a million lines of C/C++ code. If you are an ambitious developer, dedicate your passion toward this robust open source project. Practice your abilities and build your assets. BRL-CAD is downloaded and used thousands of times each month by people all around the globe; let your contributions be shared among others. Collaborate with a community of same interests. and join the team today.
 
  
 
----
 
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========Marie Gita Ribeiro : DISCOVER BRL-CAD===========
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whnRqAS-UZs&feature=youtu.be
 
 
This free open source modelling system is perfect for anyone interested in and passionate about design. Utilize the endless tools at your disposal as you design with real materials and work with volume and content not just the surface. BRL-CAD is one of the oldest CAD in the world but just keeps getting better thanks to a community of contributors from all over the world. If you still haven't; discover BRL-CAD for yourself and unleash your creativity.
 
  
 
== Idea Hopper ==
 
== Idea Hopper ==

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