What I'm Working On

Today I will layout a bit of the items I am working on.  Since starting up this blog and the code site, I haven't been able to spend quite as much time coding as I would have liked, but it has been fruitful to begin getting the application into others' hands.  I am still working through a couple of deployment bugs (most notably a .dll dependency issue for the Windows version), but hopefully I will have solid versions and installers for both platforms soon.

Also, I have had someone express an interest in starting some of the work for porting Wildcat to Linux and GTK+.  This should be really straightforward since Mac already uses GCC 4.2.  The GTK+ GUI work will be the main hurdle.  For the time being, the Mac version will continue to lead the pack for GUI and overall functionality.

Ok, here are my top development priorities right now:

1)  Automatic level-of-detail scaling for all geometry - this means that as you zoom in and out the level of detail of each piece of geometry will react accordingly.  Right now geometry is generated once and you are stuck with it.  Zoom way in on a circle and it starts to get chunky.  Also, this will enable out-of-view culling.  Meaning that if a portion of the geometry is not visible on the screen, it just won't be drawn.  A nice optimization as we try to move towards more complex geometry and assemblies.

2)  Topologically correct Pad and Shaft operations - right now if you sketch two circles that don't overlap or touch and extrude them, the kernel will treat them as one surface.  Obviously this is not correct, they should be two surfaces.  This was done originally as an optimization, but now I see the folly of my ways.  All of the infrastructure needed for this is now in place, I just have to spend a lot of time massaging the relatively complex pad and shaft operations to be smarter.

3)  Manifold/Non-Manifold topology representation.  All solid geometry should be 2-manifold.  This just means that it is a valid solid.  This is necessary to provide boolean operations (add, subtract, and union).  Most of the data structure work is in place, now I just need to clean that up and add topological operations to all 3D features (pad and shaft right now).  Strangely, this work is completely separate from #2 above.  For more detail about this topic read "Topological Structures for Geometric Modeling" by Kevin Weiler.  This is a great dissertation about non-manifold topology and boolean operations.

4)  Geometric intersections.  There are four basic types of geometry in Wildcat: point, line, curve, and surface.  I started with no line primitive, but there are way too many optimizations for lines so they got added as a separate class.  All curves and surfaces are 64-bit NURBS representations.  This provides for extremely accurate geometry.  With 5 classes there are 15 possible types of intersection, here is their status:

• Point-Point: 100% done
• Point-Line: 90% done
• Point-Curve: 75% done - need to clean up point-to-curve projection algorithm
• Point-Surface: 50% done - need to clean up point-to-surface projection algorithm
• Point-TrimSurface: 0% done
• Line-Line: 75% done - need to handle overlap case, not just single-point intersection
• Line-Curve: 75% done - need to handle overlap case, not just point intersections
• Line-Surface: 0% done
• Line-TrimSurface: 0% done
• Curve-Curve: 75% done - need to handle overlap case, not just point intersections
• Curve-Surface: 0% done
• Curve-TrimSurface: 0% done
• Surface-Surface: 0% done
• Surface-TrimSurface: 0% done
• TrimSurface-TrimSurface: 0% done

As you can see, anything Surface/TrimSurface related needs work.  This is a very complex space with lots of research having been done.  There are a ton of different Surface-Surface-Intersection (SSI) algorithms out there.  I am currently cleaning up some of the general intersection infrastructure and then plan on taking a shot at SSI.

5)  Boolean operations.  These functions will allow for realistic and complex 3D parts to be created.  They are absolutely fundamental to getting the Wildcat kernel where it needs to be.  They are also wildly complex and rely upon nearly all of the above work.  This is the #1 item I want to get working, but I have a ways to go.

6)  Geometric constraint solving.  2D sketches can be created and have basic constraints added to them, but right now these constraints do nothing but look good.  There is really only one GCM engine in commercial use (by D-Cubed - a division of UGS), and a handful of academic ones.  I have spent a great deal of time looking into this, and I think that with a few months of good work I could get one working.  This is important but a lower priority than Boolean Operations.

Wow, lots to do.  When these items are in place it should be possible to quickly add the tools to build nearly any type of 3D part.  This is when I see Wildcat really starting to take off.  I have no idea how long it will take but summers do tend to be my productive time.  This being said, I would really love to get help.  If you want to take a shot at any of these items, please feel free to contact me.

Cheers,

   Graham