IRC log for #brlcad on 20110310

00:21.21 starseeker probably shouldn't need this but wants to read it anyway: http://www.amazon.com/Art-Debugging-GDB-DDD-Eclipse/dp/1593271743
00:47.36 brlcad starseeker: did the file have a trailing newline?
00:47.45 brlcad er, newline+cr
00:48.37 brlcad Ahh.. ddd ... the first debugger I ever used.
00:48.51 brlcad that was a neat debugger, pretty memory graphs
00:48.59 Ralith oo, it has graphs?
00:49.01 Ralith install
00:49.24 brlcad yeah, if you had a linked list, you'd see your memory nodes and how they link together
00:49.59 brlcad very simple ones, but enough to get the idea of what the data is doing
00:50.36 starseeker brlcad: it did, but that shouldn't matter
00:50.40 brlcad http://v3.sk/~lkundrak/grub2-gdb/ddd-ls.png
00:51.03 brlcad starseeker: so red is still busted on windows?
00:51.14 starseeker yes - in fact it never worked
00:51.47 starseeker wonders how many white hairs he has racked up due to red...
00:52.18 brlcad 'never' is a very long time with brl-cad, you sure? :)
00:52.59 starseeker well, the new regex based version never worked
00:53.08 brlcad that I'd believe :)
00:53.21 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03starseeker * r43825 10/brlcad/branches/cmake/src/libged/red.c: MFC r43824
00:53.28 starseeker the regex didn't account for the brain-dead windows approach to line endings, and once we got past that the EOF situation causes a crash
00:54.23 brlcad that's right, you are using some regex extension to match lines right?
00:54.36 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 0386.163.157.31 07http://brlcad.org * r2482 10/wiki/Main_Page: /* Getting started */
00:54.37 starseeker match across multiple lines, yes
00:55.26 starseeker it LOOKS like regexec is running right off the end of the bu_mapped_file buffer
00:55.32 Ralith pretty
00:55.43 Ralith and by pretty I mean useful
00:55.55 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2483 10/wiki/Main_Page: Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/86.163.157.31|86.163.157.31]] ([[User talk:86.163.157.31|Talk]]); changed back to last version by [[User:Paulcs|Paulcs]]
00:56.01 brlcad Ralith: :)
00:56.16 starseeker wonders if he can convince work to pick up a copy of that book...
00:56.29 brlcad ddd got its groove on back in the early 90's
00:56.36 brlcad hasn't really ever changed unfortunately, lot of potential there
00:57.08 brlcad starseeker: it very well may be running off the end if it's looking for an EOF
00:57.19 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 0386.163.157.31 07http://brlcad.org * r2484 10/wiki/Error_Messages: Initial stub
00:57.27 Ralith suddenly SLIME doesn't hold all the cards anymore
00:59.28 starseeker terminating with \0 may work too... that's what OSX shows me after the mapped file, anyway...
01:00.03 starseeker had hoped the bu_mapped_file routines would have some kind of guarantee about sanity at the end of the buf, but maybe not
01:04.26 brlcad it's just a buffer of data
01:06.13 starseeker then I'm gonna have to do something else with it
01:06.24 starseeker because on every platform but Windows, regexec knows to stop
01:06.33 brlcad now what could be happening is that on windows, it doesn't have mmap() so bu_mapped_file() is falling back to simple write() calls
01:06.54 brlcad and if it was off-by-one, it could leave off the trailing '\0'
01:08.10 brlcad you'd probably not even notice that on code that processed one line at a time
01:11.21 starseeker looks like it used read() to pull it in
01:13.23 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03brlcad * r43826 10/brlcad/trunk/src/libbu/mappedfile.c: make sure the buffers zero-terminate in case the files being mapped do not
01:14.09 brlcad don't know if that'll fix it, but easy enough to test
01:14.16 starseeker is on it
01:16.19 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03starseeker * r43827 10/brlcad/branches/cmake/src/libbu/mappedfile.c: MFC r43826
01:18.28 starseeker yep, that's got it
01:18.33 starseeker brlcad: thanks!!
01:18.59 starseeker will have to check for other cases were n isn't enough in regex expressions
01:20.42 starseeker looks like red may be the only case...
01:21.31 brlcad your regex doesn't look right
01:21.48 brlcad [[:blank:]\r?\n]
01:22.08 brlcad presumably implying \r is optional, but that's not what ? means there
01:22.21 brlcad it's a char class
01:22.30 brlcad [[:blank:]\r\n]*
01:22.40 brlcad or [[:blank:]\r\n]+
01:22.56 starseeker hmm... wonder why it worked
01:23.08 brlcad because you're matching a literal '?
01:23.16 brlcad exactly once
01:23.32 brlcad ? or space or \r or \n
01:24.14 brlcad several places that pattern repeats
01:25.32 starseeker ah
01:25.41 starseeker so I probably don't need the ? then
01:27.35 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r0 10/wiki/Special:Log/delete:
01:27.35 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: deleted "[[Error Messages]]": there needs to be more purpose than just itemizing
01:27.35 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: possible error messages coming from brl-cad tools. the one you listed isn't
01:27.35 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: even exactly an 'error' as it is an explanation why it skips _GLOBAL
01:30.54 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03starseeker * r43828 10/brlcad/trunk/src/libged/red.c: Tweak the regex expressions for carriage return correctness - hopefully that's closer
01:34.08 starseeker has to head out, will try new regex stuff tomorrow
01:34.27 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03starseeker * r43829 10/brlcad/branches/cmake/src/libged/red.c: MFC r43828
01:34.49 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03brlcad * r43830 10/brlcad/trunk/src/libged/red.c:
01:34.50 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: simplify with the [:space:] character class which already includes newline and
01:34.50 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: carriage return. [:blank:] is a gnu extension and won't necessarily be
01:34.50 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: supported for a given vendor regex library. also fix a missed character class
01:34.50 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: '?' inclusion with the [:space:] swappage.
01:38.45 starseeker sighs - someday I'll understand regex...
01:38.57 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03starseeker * r43831 10/brlcad/branches/cmake/src/libged/red.c: MFC r43830
01:42.29 starseeker huh - apparently Kitware has a free CDash service: http://my.cdash.org/
01:43.39 starseeker wow http://my.cdash.org/index.php?project=OpenStudio
01:43.41 brlcad yep
01:43.49 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03brlcad * r43832 10/brlcad/trunk/src/libged/red.c: semper fi, er, simplify. let things fall through so there is only one copy of the cleanup code and a consolidated simplified return location.
01:44.24 starseeker brlcad: would that serve for a BRL-CAD reporting setup or would we want our own CDash server?
01:44.26 brlcad man that looks like ass
01:44.43 brlcad I *want* to love cdash .. but that ui is a bit of an eyesore :)
01:44.51 starseeker hehe
01:45.06 brlcad I'd think we'd still want our own, but still up to whomever does the work in my book
01:45.28 starseeker well, we could always rip off the CruiseControl generated html and teach CDash to output that instead...
01:45.28 brlcad that way we could hook scripting into the loop for custom actions
01:46.00 brlcad it is just the reporting front-end, so you still have to have compilation nodes set up and sending in results
01:46.12 starseeker right
01:46.18 brlcad cruisecontrol is the other one I couldn't remember
01:46.23 brlcad buildbot the third
01:46.36 starseeker cruisecontrol had the GUI you liked?
01:47.06 brlcad http://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/
01:47.18 brlcad it's really easy to use
01:47.55 brlcad features neatly grouped together with simplified reporting, then options to dive into more detail or even raw build logs only when you ask for it
01:47.57 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03starseeker * r43833 10/brlcad/branches/cmake/src/libged/red.c: MFC r43832
01:48.19 starseeker hmm... guess we could use their exec builder to fire off cmake
01:48.49 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03brlcad * r43834 10/brlcad/trunk/src/libged/red.c: ws cleanup
01:49.38 brlcad yep
01:49.49 brlcad though again, strong emphasis on "no strong preference"
01:50.20 brlcad if you or anyone else wanted to even just play with a small random pet-project CI system, I'd take no issue
01:50.40 starseeker is wary of a tool brlcad doesn't like the looks of (*memories of font discussions and graphical layout issues*)
01:50.53 brlcad it's much more important that we have continuous integration than we have "the best"
01:51.21 brlcad I'd get used to any dashboard so long as it wasn't a maintenance burden or timesink
01:51.50 starseeker wonder where we can run enough virtual machines to hit all the configs and not create a pool of molten metal...
01:51.59 brlcad their whole purpose is to report failures simply and *quickly* so they get caught as early as possible, so they can get isolated and fixed as early/easily as possible
01:52.06 starseeker pity sourceforge took down that server farm
01:52.45 brlcad any desktop machine with a few corew would be sufficient enough to crank out a half-dozen builds an hour
01:53.24 starseeker dynamic lib only and no docs, maybe...
01:54.07 starseeker unless maybe virtual machine overhead is lower these days than I remember
01:55.04 brlcad anything that can presently compile the package in less than 10 minutes should be sufficient
01:55.37 starseeker wonder if we could prepare stripped down virtual box/qemu images set up to build BRL-CAD and report, then set them up as downloadable goodies for people who want to pile in and and automatically test... setiathome for BRL-CAD :-P
01:56.29 brlcad at worse, you get another box or two or have different types of test builds -- quick fast simple reduced builds across everything on one box, then a more extensive slower build box that runs the full regression, docs, bench, etc at a slower rate
01:57.00 brlcad heh, I'm not sure that'd be useful :)
01:57.16 brlcad if it was a vm image, we'd get tons of reports testing the exact same thing
01:57.35 starseeker well, we wouldn't need hundereds of testers - but we could have a list of "images we need testing and need volunteers for"
01:58.06 brlcad better would be a build target or even a shell script that took a given checkout or source tarball through all the paces, and reported back
01:58.35 brlcad so we could basically get a report anytime someone tried to build
01:58.48 starseeker that'd be configuration explosion though
01:59.02 brlcad sure, so? :)
01:59.07 brlcad entries in a db is all
01:59.17 brlcad we hit up the most common failure reports
01:59.28 brlcad till there are none
01:59.32 starseeker that sounds a bit different than cruisecontrol/cdash...
01:59.44 brlcad they'd report to cc/cd
02:00.04 starseeker I got the impression cc/cd didn't know the details about the machine/os/etc...
02:00.12 starseeker maybe I didn't look close enough
02:00.48 brlcad doesn't really have to know, it just has to send in results -- we could easily put machine details into a log that is sent back
02:00.56 brlcad benchmark suite does exactly that now
02:01.05 starseeker nods
02:01.18 brlcad speaking of such
02:01.40 brlcad we're going to have to really kick in gear things into gear thursday if gsoc app is going to happen
02:01.58 starseeker ah, we're coming up on the deadline? OK
02:02.10 starseeker hunts for the wiki page with project ideas
02:02.16 brlcad deadline is friday mid-day
02:02.35 brlcad it'll take me a couple hours to write up the application submission
02:02.50 starseeker k - what do you need me to do firstist and mostist?
02:02.57 brlcad few hours for someone to work up a (VERY) detailed project ideas page
02:03.43 brlcad they gave feedback in '09 that our ideas page needed a lot more ideas and detail (but that they were going to accept us anyways)
02:03.48 starseeker update http://brlcad.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas or start over?
02:04.07 starseeker s/update/expand upon
02:04.18 brlcad I'd start with http://brlcad.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/, update any references to dates/times/requirements
02:04.31 brlcad add new section for 2011 where there are dated sections
02:04.46 starseeker right
02:05.22 brlcad the project ideas page for 2008 was moved to http://brlcad.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2008/Project_Ideas
02:05.43 brlcad so can do the same for 2009 and either start a new http://brlcad.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas or expand on it
02:06.30 brlcad I think we should strongly de-emphasize projects that let devs code alone like we've had in the past
02:06.30 starseeker they wanted MORE ideas?? we've got quite a few here
02:06.38 brlcad yeah, ironic, eh?
02:07.17 starseeker so, no going off in the corner and working on iges or step?
02:07.33 brlcad we get compared against other big-boys, they expect more
02:07.36 brlcad e.g., http://www.freebsd.org/projects/summerofcode.html#ideas
02:07.54 brlcad freebsd's whole set of gsoc pages is arranged decently
02:08.06 brlcad notice how those idea links expand to something even more impressive
02:09.16 brlcad yeah, ideally not things like iges/step unless they have some exceptional familiarity in that area
02:09.21 starseeker brlcad: they can code almost anything alone if they put their minds to it...
02:09.38 brlcad something that will make them explore the code better, reuse, refactor, integrate
02:10.06 brlcad the only project that might be an exception would be continuation of new gui
02:11.06 starseeker nods... I'll do my best...
02:11.31 starseeker would continuation of the constraints work fall under the integrate category or the isolated category?
02:12.54 starseeker crud - I've gotta get outta here
02:13.30 brlcad starseeker: better example of an "integrated" projects that would benefit us you can add/expand: ogre display manager, qt display manager, qt framebuffer, cross-platform adrt, libged transactions, .. maybe a quick scan down TODO for the bigger tasks
02:13.45 brlcad constraint continuation would be integrated
02:14.14 brlcad goal would have to be something precise like prep or parameters hooked into mged menus, etc
02:15.44 brlcad also need mentors to step up: dloman indianlarry ``Erik louipc yukonbob poolio or anyone else
02:15.59 brlcad since I'll need your google id again
03:22.13 starseeker brlcad: oh - any opinion on using %s for both strings and vls in bu_log?
03:28.30 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r0 10/wiki/Special:Log/move: [[Google Summer of Code/Project Ideas]] moved to [[Google Summer of Code/2009 Project Ideas]]: Moving old Project Ideas page to a date specific location - time for a new one.
03:38.01 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2487 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: Start layout setup for the new Project Ideas iteration
03:49.01 brlcad erp, missing slash
03:51.00 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r0 10/wiki/Special:Log/delete:
03:51.00 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: deleted "[[Google Summer of Code/Project Ideas]]": content was: 'The list of
03:51.00 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: possible projects below should serve as a good starting point for new developers
03:51.00 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: that would like to get involved in working on BRL-CAD. Th...' (and the only
03:51.00 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: contributor was '[[Special:Contributions/Starseeker|Starseeker]]')
03:51.09 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r0 10/wiki/Special:Log/delete: deleted "[[Google Summer of Code/2009/Project Ideas]]": Deleted to make way for move
03:51.11 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r0 10/wiki/Special:Log/move: [[Google Summer of Code/2009 Project Ideas]] moved to [[Google Summer of Code/2009/Project Ideas]]: consistency with 2008
03:51.42 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2490 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2009: refere to old ideas page
03:52.40 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r0 10/wiki/Special:Log/delete: restored "[[Google Summer of Code/Project Ideas]]": 2 revision(s) restored: hrm, looks like mw or I was confused with a bogus url
03:53.30 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2491 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2009: historic ref
03:54.04 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2492 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2009/Project_Ideas: historic ref
03:56.34 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2493 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2009: past tense
04:00.25 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2494 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code: reword for past tense
04:04.26 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2495 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code: reword for more awesome
04:05.57 brlcad starseeker: my inclination is that would be bad (overloaded behavior, inconsistent, probably more confusing than warnings) and probably wouldn't even work since the compiler is supposed to validate that typeof() is a char* for %s, which it wouldn't be
04:10.17 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2496 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2011: stub in for 2011
04:13.37 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2497 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Checklist: numbered list
04:14.17 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2498 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Checklist: retitle
04:15.28 starseeker growl... so we're permenantly stuck with the %V warnings then
04:16.23 starseeker unless we get the gcc devs to add a new feature, and even then it'll only be in the newest gcc versions
04:16.53 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2499 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Checklist: regroup for clarity
04:17.44 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2500 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Checklist: subtasks don't need to be numbered
04:21.57 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2502 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code: KISS
04:23.14 brlcad wonders if dloman would be willing to work up this year's gsoc flyer
04:24.04 brlcad ( prior examples at http://brlcad.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code#BRL-CAD_participation_in_GSoC )
04:31.58 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Sean 07http://brlcad.org * r2503 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Checklist: add deadline dates
04:33.11 brlcad that's about all I can push through for tonight
04:33.18 brlcad need to get back to release
04:33.20 starseeker nods
04:35.10 brlcad thinks we need at least 30 fleshed out ideas, perhaps categorized similar to http://brlcad.org/wiki/Contributor_Quickies
04:35.29 brlcad (EASY, MEDIUM, HARD)
04:36.06 brlcad or Web, C, C++, Tcl
04:36.15 brlcad both
04:36.36 starseeker brlcad: OK... I'm just tossing stuff up right now, I'll sort it once it's more fleshed out
04:36.42 brlcad nods
04:37.11 brlcad you can probably utilize the entire 2009 list and just keep adding more, remove the one or two that are no longer relevant
04:38.03 starseeker oh - I was starting with the whole "more interactive" thing and was gonna review the 2009 list to see what qualified...
04:39.26 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2504 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: More ideas - this isn't anything like final form, probably - just scratchpad
04:40.30 brlcad typo in the top title section
04:40.45 brlcad sure, however you wanna do it :)
04:40.58 starseeker the "AN IDEA" one?
04:40.59 brlcad aim for 50, hopefully we'll get to 40 :)
04:41.05 brlcad "=."
04:41.17 starseeker oh, good eye
04:41.41 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2505 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas:
04:41.47 starseeker kinda liked FreeBSD's grouping by larger scale topic
04:42.09 starseeker I'll take a whack, then you can tell me why it's wrong :-P
04:42.26 starseeker brlcad: did you want to get those red changes into this release?
04:45.59 *** join/#brlcad Ralith (~ralith@S010600221561996a.vc.shawcable.net)
04:56.00 *** join/#brlcad dli (~dli@dsl-69-171-148-245.acanac.net)
04:57.26 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2506 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: list a few more things...
04:58.00 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2507 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: Constraint solver needs its own page
04:58.33 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2508 10/wiki/Geometric_Constraint_Solver: Put description on individual page
05:09.28 starseeker brlcad: do you happen to know whether or not its possible to recognize an arbitrary NURBS surface as being a component of (say) a sphere or a torus?
05:10.30 Ralith starseeker: is BRL-CAD doing SoC this year?
05:10.35 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2509 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: More tasks to flesh out...
05:10.43 starseeker we'll see :-)
05:11.24 Ralith if so, will almost certainly submit a GPU accel proposal.
05:18.59 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2510 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: Couple more NURBS ideas...
05:26.26 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2511 10/wiki/Ayam_Editor_Feature_Integration: Toss a few notes into the Ayam/NURBS entry
05:53.25 brlcad starseeker: did someone report red?
05:53.31 starseeker Victor
06:06.27 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2512 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: That's around 30 ideas... some work to do tomorrow
06:50.18 brlcad Ralith: one never knows until orgs are announced
06:51.02 Ralith yeah, meant to ask "applying"
06:51.07 Ralith and wiki confirms
06:51.44 brlcad starseeker: not definitively unless the surfaces are tagged with originating geometry
06:53.02 brlcad Ralith: yeah, it looks like we're probably applying if I can get a couple more mentors to sign on
06:53.10 Ralith awesome
06:53.32 Ralith would be a great way to spend the summer
06:54.36 brlcad Ralith: I'd be cautious about a gpu accel project for the same aforementioned "prefer integrated code, minimal 'new code'" concerns -- it'd have to be very specific about how it'd be integrated and beneficial
06:55.35 brlcad and from a former gsoc'er, you'll have to work twice as hard to convince
06:56.19 Ralith hm, that's a shame
06:57.12 brlcad not really, it's only fair to the 3k other students :)
06:57.21 Ralith hah
06:57.23 Ralith yeah
06:58.23 brlcad if someone had been more actively commiting over the past year and a half, it'd be a totally different story ;)
06:58.24 Ralith may play with it anyway, depending on what else I end up doing
06:58.27 brlcad hell, even passively :)
06:59.29 Ralith looks slightly regretful
07:00.08 brlcad the point of gsoc is to get students engaged in open source, even if it's not brl-cad ... http://www.ohloh.net/p/brlcad/contributors/17162689320215 tells a sad story
07:00.45 Ralith yes, it's quite true
07:00.51 Ralith though I've been plenty active elsewhere
07:00.56 Ralith not sure why ohloh hasn't picked up on that
07:01.10 brlcad not intending to pick on you personally, just saying that puts you back into the boat with everyone else on level standing
07:01.18 Ralith I know
07:01.30 brlcad you can combine accounts
07:02.07 Ralith I think most of the projects simply aren't on ohloh
07:02.11 Ralith which can be remedied, certainly
07:02.37 Ralith but anyway, not too relevant
07:03.24 brlcad yeah, the project itself is more the issue, it'd have to be carefully spelled out
07:03.50 Ralith nod
07:04.19 brlcad for example, most of the gpgpu research is on accellerating triangle raytracing -- that's just not very interesting any more, especially now that we have our new TIE library integrated with LIBRT
07:04.23 Ralith mainly it strikes me as a good opportunity to learn more about raytracing and rt's internals in particular, as well as GPU frobbery
07:04.52 Ralith hm.
07:05.03 Ralith I wasn't aware it was a research area per se
07:05.04 brlcad so it'd have to be some other means to accellerate librt, which would be either in the spatial partitioning, the boolean weaving, the primitive evaluations, etc
07:05.14 brlcad oh hell yeah, a huge one
07:05.40 Ralith isn't raytracing embarassingly parallel across each ray?
07:05.55 brlcad nvidia and intel fighting it out, both trying to push gpgpu raytracing into gaming, it's been five years+ in the making
07:06.02 brlcad yes?
07:07.06 Ralith perhaps I drastically misunderstand the problem, but wouldn't simply mapping rays across GPU compute units—with fairly straight port of the relevant rt code—be a huge gain?
07:07.39 brlcad mapping rays to the gpu is trivial, days work
07:07.52 brlcad you have to evaluate and march those rays
07:07.57 brlcad against geometry
07:08.06 Ralith right, I meant mapping the entire process
07:08.48 brlcad so how does one evaluate whether a ray intersects with a torus on the gpu?
07:09.00 brlcad heck, even a simple sphere
07:09.27 brlcad it's doable, but it's not a 1-1 mapping or a mere matter of "porting" anything
07:09.49 brlcad you generally have to completely rethink how data is packed and evaluated
07:10.46 Ralith I guess it should have been obvious that the hardware is ill-optimized for the subtleties of geometry more complex than triangles.
07:10.49 brlcad that's why most of the research is just with triangles -- only have to deal with one entity type that is very trivial to evaluate, has a fixed constant data size, etc
07:11.10 Ralith that sounds a bit beyond what I can accomplish based on what I know, at least in a single summer.
07:11.22 brlcad the hardware isn't even really geared for triangles, but the calculations are so few
07:11.31 Ralith well
07:11.37 Ralith sketchy understanding here
07:12.02 brlcad you actually *can* do spheres even easier if you apply the same techniques you apply for triangles, but then a beast like a torus becomes super problematic because it requires a root solver
07:12.03 Ralith but aren't GPUs pretty much all about vector ops, and triangles trivial to work with within those?
07:12.21 brlcad yep, that's where fixed data size becomes a win
07:12.30 brlcad *small* fixed data size
07:12.43 Ralith and the math, surely?
07:12.58 Ralith well, I suppose you just said that
07:13.12 Ralith alright, thanks for the explanation; sounds like this was ill-conceived.
07:14.03 Ralith an interesting problem to be sure, but I don't have the background to do original work in that sort of thing.
07:14.45 brlcad it's a great feature, a great research project, but very non-trivial to say the least -- you'd probably be able to publish in an journal or even siggraph if you got it working for general implicit geometry
07:15.21 brlcad easier attack vector would be accelerating our boolean weaving step
07:15.30 Ralith haven't a clue what that is O.o
07:15.36 brlcad exactly :)
07:16.19 Ralith ah well.
07:16.23 brlcad that's where the "you'd have to work twice as hard to convince" came from
07:16.48 brlcad because it could take a month just to get schooled up on the background knowledge needed
07:17.08 Ralith knowing the scope of the problem, even that seems generous
07:17.18 Ralith for weak values of knowing even now
07:18.06 brlcad that's where if you were already familiar with even the basic mechanics of librt working on portions of the code consistently, that'd make for an easier case to dive into such a hard problem
07:19.30 brlcad you'd know the application structure's purpose, how hit callbacks work, when boolean evaluation is performed, what that means, how the implicits evaluate, types of CSG dag nodes, etc
07:20.22 Ralith perhaps continuing jonored's work on a toolpather would be more realistic?
07:20.38 brlcad fairly complex code, highly optimized, and critical code at that which would require 100% validation
07:20.49 Ralith though I'm not certain of my ability to find a footing with the (as far as I can tell, currently buggy) math there either
07:21.11 brlcad what toolpather?
07:21.20 Ralith I suppose he never posted it here
07:21.31 Ralith you recall a while back that he was working on a gcode generator?
07:21.34 Ralith couple years ago or so?
07:21.45 brlcad not specifically
07:21.50 *** join/#brlcad cjdevlin (~devlin@d118-75-252-178.try.wideopenwest.com)
07:21.58 Ralith he was, and it got abandoned in favor of his studies
07:22.09 Ralith but I got ahold of him a few months back and got him to send me a tarball of the git repo
07:22.28 brlcad I do recall that discussion
07:22.44 Ralith he claims outline tracing is mostly working, though in my limited experiments I've not gotten correct output
07:22.51 brlcad that wasn't based on brl-cad iirc, though, no?
07:23.09 Ralith er, it uses librt to interrogate BRL-CAD databases
07:23.21 brlcad hrm
07:23.22 Ralith not sure how much more 'based on' it gets
07:23.36 Ralith want a look at the tarball?
07:23.55 brlcad not at the moment, but it is interesting
07:23.59 Ralith kk
07:24.12 Ralith I'll see if I can take a better look at it in the coming month and work out what state it's really in
07:26.20 brlcad yeah, that was back in january we were talking about it
07:26.28 brlcad you were asking about curvature
07:28.31 Ralith yeah, jonored mentioned that torus curvature was the standing bug; I had planned to dive in and fix that if I could get it to behave for simpler primitives
07:28.52 Ralith haven't managed that yet, though haven't put much time in it
07:37.13 brlcad if it really is non-gui based (which an old post of his indicated), that would be a good one to get working and fully integrate
07:37.25 brlcad basically a "g-gcode" converter
07:45.21 Ralith it is indeed commandline.
07:46.00 Ralith in fact it even follows the naming scheme
07:46.01 Ralith g2gcode
07:46.08 Ralith bear in mind, though, that additive and subtractive toolpaths are differnet beasts
07:46.16 Ralith different*
07:57.27 *** join/#brlcad d_rossberg (~rossberg@BZ.BZFLAG.BZ)
07:58.53 Ralith gah.
07:59.14 Ralith journal website lists this article as 'full text available,' but when I log in through my univ it's preview only :|
07:59.42 Ralith gunna have to get a physical copy I guess.
08:08.57 Ralith (trying to get ahold of Martin Held's "On the computational geometry of pocket machining")
08:21.55 *** join/#brlcad Stattrav (~Stattrav@122.167.172.122)
08:21.56 *** join/#brlcad Stattrav (~Stattrav@unaffiliated/stattrav)
10:38.38 *** join/#brlcad dli (~dli@dsl-69-171-148-245.acanac.net)
11:16.19 d_rossberg i get fringes on ray-tracing cones
11:17.26 d_rossberg e.g. the havoc's tail (ae 300 0)
13:47.57 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2513 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: add subversion idea
13:55.10 starseeker brlcad: would search exec be a viable GSoC project?
14:45.37 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Erik 07http://brlcad.org * r2514 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: /* BRL-CAD Core Library Enhancement */
14:57.37 ``Erik cdash is heavily css driven. if it's the look and not the structure, it should be easy to make it less ugly
15:20.32 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03erikgreenwald * r43835 10/geomcore/trunk/tests/utility/threadTest.cxx: programmatically test for functional threading instead of spewing junk to the screen for human analysis
15:21.46 starseeker ``Erik: you good to mentor?
15:23.06 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2515 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: Couple more line items - that's 38...
15:23.19 ``Erik yup, msg'd brlcad my id
15:24.34 starseeker ``Erik: can you scan that list and see if I left out any juicy items? brlcad was talking about wanting 50...
15:24.55 ``Erik yeah, I looked over it t his morning, um
15:25.16 *** join/#brlcad juanman (~quassel@unaffiliated/juanman)
15:25.17 ``Erik I'll splat some stuff on and if someone doesn't like it, they can remove it O.o
15:25.25 *** join/#brlcad Stattrav (~Stattrav@117.192.159.181)
15:25.25 *** join/#brlcad Stattrav (~Stattrav@unaffiliated/stattrav)
15:31.44 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Erik 07http://brlcad.org * r2516 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: /* BRL-CAD Core Library Enhancement */
15:32.33 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Erik 07http://brlcad.org * r2517 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: /* Tools */
15:36.03 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Erik 07http://brlcad.org * r2518 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: /* Tools */
15:36.47 ``Erik is [[NURBS Intersections]] an evaluation of a CSG of NURBS into a single one?
15:37.10 starseeker no, that's just the surface/surface problem and related subproblems
15:37.40 starseeker I doubt a summer of code student could get all the way to the final evaluated model
15:37.57 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Erik 07http://brlcad.org * r2519 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: 'csg' makes more sense than 'boolean' here
15:38.58 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Erik 07http://brlcad.org * r2520 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas: /* BRL-CAD Core Library Enhancement */
15:39.25 ``Erik hm, can always harvest TODO and http://brlcad.org/~sean/ideas.html for some more
15:39.40 starseeker nods - I grabbed a few out of there
15:39.49 starseeker was trying to look for things that would be 'integrated'
15:39.53 ``Erik orange page, too?
15:39.59 starseeker nods
15:40.20 starseeker for example, I'd worry that a Blender plugin would kinda be off in its own little world...
15:41.01 starseeker now if they want to snarf the Blender file import that game kit implemented and turn it into a BRL-CAD importer... :-)
15:41.24 ``Erik a little bit, but it would need a fair amount of communication to figure out how to translate and what functionality
15:42.06 starseeker nods - well, we've probably got close to enough lined up there - now we need to start filling 'em in
15:42.11 ``Erik ooh, they have one now? last I looked, their format was basically a swizzle of memory dumped to disk
15:42.37 starseeker yeah, pretty much - apparently someone figured out how to do something intelligent with it...
15:42.41 starseeker one sec...
15:42.55 ``Erik starts writing a test for ControlledThread O.o
15:43.06 starseeker http://code.google.com/p/gamekit/
15:45.15 ``Erik yeah, saw that before, hm
15:48.18 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2521 10/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Project_Ideas:
16:21.27 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2522 10/wiki/OGRE_Display_Manager: Flesh out OGRE task (I think this is low difficulty?)
16:21.40 *** join/#brlcad piksi (piksi@pi-xi.net)
16:45.24 brlcad starseeker: sure, search exec would be viable
16:47.28 brlcad most of the index card tasks are decent gsoc tasks
16:47.33 brlcad should do a quick scan
16:48.12 brlcad since they're < month for us, that easily scales up to 3 months for someone else including communication, reporting, testing, and documentation
17:11.35 dli brlcad, http://paste.pocoo.org/show/351409/
18:36.43 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03erikgreenwald * r43836 10/geomcore/trunk/tests/utility/threadTest.cxx: start stubbing in ControlledThread test
18:41.51 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2523 10/wiki/Qt_Display_Manager: Qt display manager
18:42.31 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2524 10/wiki/Qt_Display_Manager: Qt, not ogre
18:53.59 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2525 10/wiki/Qt_Framebuffer: Qt framebuffer
18:56.07 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2526 10/wiki/Qt_Framebuffer: Grr - framebuffer, not display manager
19:08.51 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2527 10/wiki/Other_Cross_Platform_Framebuffer: Cross Platform framebuffer
19:21.20 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2528 10/wiki/High_Dynamic_Range_Support: HDR output support
19:21.27 starseeker ``Erik: mind reviewing the HDR one if you have a sec?
19:21.57 ``Erik sure, um, and I just changed the css to mark the 'new' class as red, so'z you can tell which ones you've done
19:22.11 starseeker thanks :-)
19:22.30 ``Erik (we can revert it once this exercise is over if brlcad wants, it's in RCS)
19:23.12 ``Erik "There is not fundamental reason" ... wow, right out of the gate :>
19:23.29 starseeker heh, sorry - distracted
19:23.35 starseeker (house is leaking again)
19:23.50 ``Erik other than the picasso grammar, looks decent...
19:28.10 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2529 10/wiki/High_Dynamic_Range_Support:
19:40.18 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Starseeker 07http://brlcad.org * r2530 10/wiki/MGED_to_Archer_Command_Migration: Command migration
20:09.10 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03erikgreenwald * r43837 10/geomcore/trunk/tests/GS/GeometryServiceTest.cxx: indent
20:23.33 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03erikgreenwald * r43838 10/geomcore/trunk/tests/GS/GeometryServiceTest.cxx: purdee kulurz
21:01.24 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03Markhobley 07http://brlcad.org * r2531 10/wiki/Talk:Error_Messages: wikibook
21:27.22 brlcad dli: oh snap
21:27.28 brlcad aua he left
21:31.19 brlcad debates trying an application form this year
21:31.34 starseeker for GSoc you mean?
21:31.38 brlcad yeah
21:31.49 starseeker does seem kinda rushed
21:32.14 brlcad many of them just have no idea on how to pitch an idea, so there ends up being a lot of information we have to keep asking for
21:33.35 brlcad it has helped in the past to separate out those who HAVE thought through their idea and have a lot to say, but many of those devs tend to have trouble integrating their thoughts with our codebase
21:33.50 brlcad or worse, the ones that can write great, but can't actually code
21:34.45 starseeker had thought about some basic "submit this code with your application" kinda things, but that takes time to define
21:35.22 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03erikgreenwald * r43839 10/geomcore/trunk/tests/GS/GeometryServiceTest.cxx: more indentation, staticizing, etc
21:35.26 starseeker ``Erik: what's your take?
21:35.55 ``Erik *shrug*
21:36.33 ``Erik we tried "submit a patch" a couple years back, seems it was a bit of a pain
21:37.15 starseeker ``Erik: should we rush to get it "ready" or punt until next year?
21:37.47 brlcad submit a patch worked pretty well I thought -- the strong patches ended up being the strong coders
21:38.09 brlcad kept the application count down, but I think it worked
21:38.23 ``Erik the weak patches were a depressing time sink, though :)
21:38.41 brlcad so we be more agressive in reviewing them
21:39.03 ``Erik starseeker: doesn't hurt to try, they're usually fairly easy going if minor tweaking is needed
21:39.04 brlcad we can point them to the quickies this year
21:39.22 starseeker brlcad: good idea
21:39.26 brlcad no quickie should take more than a day or few
21:39.35 starseeker whoops, contractor is here
21:39.37 brlcad we can certainly expand that list
21:57.01 CIA-14 BRL-CAD: 03erikgreenwald * r43840 10/geomcore/trunk/ (59 files in 3 dirs): footer.sh
22:00.37 ``Erik damnit, thought I broke that soon enough
22:33.17 starseeker brlcad: expand the projects list? I've still got to get all those fleshed out
22:47.33 *** join/#brlcad dli (~dli@dyn-216-212.wireless.concordia.ca)
23:56.42 brlcad starseeker: I meant the quickies list, no worries -- that'd be before they start applying, not before tomorrow

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