Slight Progress Update

Sorry for being quite lately.  I have been very busy with my real job, but we are still making progress with Wildcat.  The Windows build (using wxWidgets) looks great.  Dan has done a great job.  Thanks to him.

I have slowly been adding better support for serialization.  There are quite a few features that don't have full serialization support yet, so I have been adding that in.  My motivation for this is so that I can have a reference part to use for coding boolean operations.  It is much easier, and faster, to just have a file that is opened instead of re-creating the part each and every time. 

The next three weeks are going to be crazy busy with my job, so don't expect a lot of updates.  Check the SVN for progress.  Once we are through the middle of October thinks should be a bit better.  One thing we are still really looking for is someone willing to help coordinate the Linux port.  I think that Dan has done the heavy lifting getting the WX build running, so it should be pretty easy for someone with a linux background.  Let me know if you can help.

Cheers,

   Graham

tool bars

I have added tool bars to the wxWidgets version of Wildcat. They are defined by the existing text file "toolbar_manifest.xml".
They all start at the top left, at the moment. I have to drag them to place.
I need to store their position for next time and allow the user to turn them on and off from the menu. The tiff files are all defined upside down!

wxWildcat

Graham, thanks for adding me as an author to your blog.
I am pleased you think wxWidgets is a good way forward for Wildcat.
It should mean that all user interface work can be done in one place, making the work easier, giving you more time to do the geometry stuff. The wxWidgets project I added is now as good for me as the MFC one. Hopefully more people will be able to build it, now that it can be built with Visual Studio 2008 Express. I'll add a toolbar next. The picture of me is from 5 minutes ago.

wxWidgets on the Way

Two posts ago I mentioned that Dan was starting on the wxWidgets port of Wildcat.  He has been making good progress and has checked in the initial code.  He has also already documented the build instructions for this project, here.  You can find pretty much everything you need to know there.  We are just getting started with this, so please be patient as we add better support.  This should make is much easier to have both a nice binary distro for Windows and also a Linux version.  If you have any questions about this work please post a message to the forum.

Cheers,

   Graham

A Quick Diversion

As I mentioned in my last post, Dan Heeks has offered to help out on Wildcat.  He is working on the paths necessary to support non-GPU machines.  Having spent nearly 18 months being the only person checking things into the repository it is kind of strange (but very welcome) to see new code appear as Dan works.  We are making good progress as Dan is now able to at least get Wildcat running and open a new document.  I never realized how much I made use of Vertex Buffer Objects (VBOs) and rectangular textures - neither of which are supported on the GMA 3100 chipset found in his computer.  Mostly I am trying to stay out of Dan's way at the moment!

Here is a quick screenshot I took this morning just for some eye candy.  Please to enjoy.

On my system sketching and extrusions are working quite nicely.  I am sure that there are profiles out there that will take it down, but even moderately complex ones are working for me as of now.

As a quick aside, since I am working away on all of the geometric intersection routines I needed a good way to quickly generate solids to intersect.  I can use any one of the existing planes and create two solids that intersect pretty easily, but I wanted a bit more.  So I have started to work on a dialog box that will allow for creation of arbitrary planes.  This is something that will absolutely be needed down the road so I figured why not now.  I have also mocked up the dialog box for pads (extrusions).  Here that one is:

Cheers,

   Graham

Intersections and Contributors

Hello,

I am working away on more of the geometric intersection algorithms.  I seem to keep getting distracted by exciting optimizations and improvements in other things.  You will see more of that in the coming days.  This should be exciting work though.

But the great news that I want to pass along is that Wildcat now has its first contributor outside of myself.  I would like to welcome Dan Heeks to the team.  He has decided to help add support for integrated-GPU platforms (i.e. GL earlier than 1.5) and to begin adding GUI support via wxWidgets.  Both of these improvements are highly anticipated and I really welcome the support.

Dan is also working on a couple of projects of his own.  The most notable is one that I hope we can eventually integrate with Wildcat.  HeeksCNC is his open source CAM software.  He blogs about it here and code is available here.  Check it out!  And thanks for joining Dan.  Its good to have some help.

More soon.  Cheers,

   G