POV-Ray Export and LinuxCNC StepConf improvement

Name: Gurwinder Singh Bains

E-mail Address: gswithbains@gmail.com

IRC Username :Gurwinder

Background

B.Tech final year student of Computer Science at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana, India. In my free time I love to draw portraits with graphite and charcoal. I'm a weightlifter under SAI( Sports Authority of India) from past two years.

Brief Summary

POV-Ray Export

Geometry conversion is a very important aspect for every CAD software as it is the basis for CAD data exchange between various CAD softwares. BRL-CAD has dozens of importer and exporters but this does not include support for g to POV-Ray file converter. So am going to write a POV-Ray exporter in this summer.

LinuxCNC StepConf improvements

LinuxCNC is open source software system for numerical control of machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers, cutting machines, robots and hexapods. It can control up to 9 axes or joints of a CNC machine using G-code (RS-274NGC) as input. For configuring LinuxCNC with machines there is a GUI, StepConf written in Python. So am going to add missing features in it.

Description:

POV-Ray exporter

POV-Ray, is a ray tracing program which generates images from a text-based scene description, and is available for a variety of computer platforms. It was originally based on DKBTrace, written by David Kirk Buck and Aaron A. Collins for the Amiga computers. Many methods for generating the 3-D models are used, including a companion program "moray" for interactive modeling. BRL-CAD has many exporters and importers which are used as a way of sharing data between BRL-CAD and other CAD softwares. They all are written well. BRL-CAD require g to POV-Ray converter from last two three decades and I'm going to write a code of POV-Ray exporter for BRL-CAD in this GSoC. Currently I have submitted code for sphere and torus which is working successfully. In all these, database is parsed and by using that parsed data using librt library it exports those primitives into POV-Ray file format. I have written tgc code and cylinder which requires some improvement. Moving further in exporter I am going to convert some primitives upto the Mid-Term Evaluation. I have to make macro which converts BRL-CAD's primitives into POV-Ray. POV-Ray has different way of representing its own primitives. So it require more focus on macro logics. I will work for BRL-CAD's POV-Ray exporter upto the Mid-Term Evaluation.

LinuxCNC StepConf Improvements

LinuxCNC is an open source software which is used with many machines like milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers, cutting machines, robots and hexapods. Its used for numerical control of machines. After Mid-Term Evaluation, am going to work for LinuxCNC in addding new features on StepConf( Stepper Configuration Wizard ). As its a program for generating configuration files for specific class of CNC machines so it requires more features to be added. So I'm going to work on it in this GSoC after Mid-Term Evaluation and write those features upto the Final Evaluation

My whole GSoC is divided into two parts. Before Mid-Term Evaluation, I have to submit POV-Ray exporter in which I will convert some remaining BRL-CAD's primitives. And after Mid-Term Evaluation I am going to work on LinuxCNC in adding new features in Stepper configuration Wizard upto Final Evaluation.

Development Schedule and Timeline

Upto 25th May: Community Bonding

I will do 1 to 2 hrs/day work on 26 and 27 May as I have my final project exam. I will be totally dedicated to gsoc after exams. I will be in Communication with my mentor, familiarize with POV-Ray and BRL-CAD, understand parsing of file and understand the exporting of different primitives.

Pre-mid term evaluation( May 26 to Jun 26 )

1st Week:

  • Read particale
  • Export particale

2nd Week:

  • Read ell from database
  • Export ell

3rd Week:

  • Read arb8 from database
  • Export arb8

4th and 5th Week:

  • Read tgc from database
  • Export tgc
  • Start basics of Python

26 June to 3 July: Submitting mid term report

30 June - 3 July (Mid term Evaluation)

After Mid Term Evaluation From 4 July to 17 Aug

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Time Availability

I am not fully available in the month of April and May as I have my end semester exams from 27th April to 14th May. After May I will work for 40+ hours/week for gsoc( except 5 hours in the evening).

Why Me

As I contributed in BRL-CAD and submitted g-pov converter to it before starting of gsoc. So it make me feel proud if I wrote the remaining primitives conversion code for BRL-CAD.

https://github.com/GurwinderSinghBains/BRL-CAD I have submitted four primitive conversion for g-pov converter.

Why BRL-CAD

I choose BRL-CAD because since I started contributing to this community I have had the opportunity to learn so much about software and open-source development and also due to my special interest in computer graphics.

Refrences

[1] http//:povray.org

[2] http//:brlcad.org

[3] http//:linuxcnc.org