User:EBautu

Abstract

The more.brlcad.org website (MoRe as in Model Repository) will help build a common repository of BRL-CAD models, which will allow BRL-CAD users to share their models and to easily locate useful models. An advantage of using Drupal both for the repository and the main site is that we can integrate the two sites (use the same code base, share users accounts, etc). The activity logs for this project are here.

Description

This project will focus on developing a Drupal-based web application that will allow BRL-CAD users to browse BRL-CAD model repositories, search, download and comment on models, as well as publish their own. This will permit users to share their models with the community, in order for others learn from their models, to increase their productivity and reduce modeling time. At the beginning, the application will be hosted on the more.brlcad.org (MoRe = Model Repository), but in the end it will also be packaged as a Drupal installation profile, allowing other users to quickly setup their own repositories.

I plan to build the model repository website using mostly existing Drupal modules and to develop new ones only where needed (i.e. extract metadata from models, generate thumbnails from models, convert models). The site will have a light design based on strict XHTML and CSS standards. It will use clean URLs in order to increase the friendliness towards users and search engines.

The CCK module will be used to define custom fields for each model node and comments and fivestar voting will allow users to provide feedback on the models they used. Each model will have its own page with information on the model (name of the model, author, description, comments) and links to related pages: model file downloads, similar models, screenshots, etc. A versioning system will be setup so that version updates of models are preserved and available to users.

Apart from model pages, the site will also feature book node pages allowing user to share their modeling know-how with others. I hope that with time and help from the community, some of these will evolve into real tutorials or even books (as was the case for Drupal, Moodle, and other open source projects).

When submitting new models, users will provide some information about the model (name, description, tags, etc), and upload their file(s). Users may also upload image files of the model that best showcases their features. Administrators will be able to promote interesting images to brlcad.org’s gallery.

Models may be uploaded in various file formats supported by BRLCAD and a custom module that will use BRL-CAD tools to automatically create thumbnails and to convert to other formats (as a cron job or on the fly, depending on the server configuration).

The site will allow various searching and browsing methods: browsing by author and by tags, searching by model name and advanced searching, tag clouds to show largest model categories, etc.

The MoRe BRLCAD site will support automatic content translation (english, french, german, italian, etc) and critical activities (user registration, model submission, model commenting etc) will be protected by CAPTCHA validation in order to prevent spam.

Schedule

• April, 20 – May, 23 – discus web site features with the mentor; collect feedback from the mentor and community (both BRLCAD and Drupal).
• May, 25 – June, 7 – setup more.brlcad.org with Drupal and existing modules; adapt the site theme of www.brlcad.ord
• June, 8 – July, 10 – develop custom modules for specific tasks (import model metadata, thumbnail generation);
• July, 12 – August 8 – develop custom modules for specific tasks (automatic model conversion);
• August, 9 – August, 15 – remove reported bugs
• September, 3 – submit code and resource files to Google

Completion criteria

The more.brlcad.org will allow users to search and browse for models using various criteria, download models, and submit new models.

Results

The more.brlcad.org website will help build a common repository of BRL-CAD models, which will allow BRL-CAD users to share their models and to easily locate useful models. An advantage of using Drupal both for the repository and the main site is that we can integrate the two sites (use the same code base, share users tables, etc).

Conclusions (added at the end of the project)

When the "Firm pencils down" day arrived for GSoC 2009 this was the implementation status of the requirements for our model repository project (collected from IRC chats with starseeker, brlcad, ``erik, and others, and presented in random order):

• have a clear licensing: implemented using a taxonomy
• HTTP upload method: implemented using a customized filefield module (which allows normal and Ajax uploads)
• other non-HTTP upload methods: implemented using a customized filefield module; users can upload their files through FTP (or other methods) and then select those files in the submit model form (using Ajax completion)
• possibility to report abuse (licence infringement): implemented using the the flag module (initially was node_queue, but was later replaced)
• automatic metadata extraction: the brlcad custom module reads the summary, title, units, database version, objects list, and top objects from the models.
• information from the model to be accesible on web (web-ready information capabilities): metadata extracted from the model is filled into CCK fields which can be further edited
• categorize the model through the website: implemented using taxonomies (one for licence, one for keywords)
• visualize the model: the imagefield module is used to store model raytrace renderings (automatically generated and/or uploaded by the user)
• automatic raytracing: the brlcad custom module automatically raytraces models, convert the raytraced rendering to png and adds them to the imagefield CCK fields.
• captcha points for submissions: implemented with recaptcha
• uploaded geometry gets queued for addition, views are queued for rendering, etc: when submitted or edited, all models get flaged as "requiring BRLCAD processing". The brlcad custom module process these models one by one, when the cron task is triggered (or when started manually).
• import cad geometry: the site accepts uploads in many formats (g, asc, dxf, stl, iges, euclid, etc); when processed, for each model a .g model file is produced.
• export cad geometry: the site allows the conversion of the .g file to multiple formats (asc, dxf, stl, iges, euclid, x3d, dxf, vrml, etc). This is enabled automatically by creating a filefield CCK field named ``format``_file in the group_files group of the model content type (where format can be: asc, acad, autocad, euclid, iges, stl, tankill, vrml, x3d)
• browse: implemented with views, using various ordering methods
• provide a strong feedback loop (like cia and/or e-mail notifications on changes): the cianotify custom module sends cia notification on various (customized) site events (e.g. a model is submitted, a model was processed by BRLCAD, a user registered, etc)
• rating system: implemented through fivestar module
• submission should have a cited source and the submission process allowing that source to be specified: there is a required CCK field for it.

Other things (not explicitly required, but implemented):

• download count: implemented with a custom made very light download count module which works both for private and public files
• tag clouds: implemented with taggadelic module (customized to fix some caching bugs)
• brlcad processsing optimizations: A non-preemptiv processing time limit is implemented to prevent long task from keeping the server busy. Many other optimisation methods are also implemented: files are not converted between same format (just linked together), only the misssing renderings are generated, only the missing file formats are converted, etc.
• support for multiple version of BRLCAD: all BRLCAD related task are externalized in TCL scripts (these scripts will be very similar for most versions, but have some special processing for a few versions).
• customized view points and view sizes: the number, size and the view points of the automatic raytrace renderings can be changed in the site admin UI.
• allow users to select which objects should be to render: object list is read from the model file and custom made CCK widget (a multicolumn select list) allows users to select to object to render (by default, the top objects are selected).

These things I did not implement:

• a special flag to note whether it's a solid model or not: i didn't focused on this one (it can be done by parsing the object list: there's only 3 primitive types we support that aren't solid)

See also

• Activities logs
• Model Repository site