Still Here

It has been far too long since I posted any updates.  I apologize for this.  As some of you may know, my real job is as a graduate student.  I am pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science.  Obviously the end point for this process is writing and defending a dissertation.  One step before that is to propose the research you want to conduct.  

I am hoping to use much of the work already done in Wildcat as a large portion of my dissertation.  This would seem to benefit everyone.  I would get my degree and be able to move Wildcat forward at the same time.  My advisor is open to this idea, but I need to write up my proposal.  Writing this document is what is currently consuming me.  Sadly the proposal itself doesn't do much for Wildcat, it just talks about what I will eventually do.  I hope to wrap up the proposal in the next month or two, so please be patient.

Thanks to everyone who has tried Wildcat.   Your continued enthusiasm is great motivation.

Cheers,

   Graham

Boolean Operations

Today's note is going to be quick.  Just two things...

First, on Wednesday Dan pushed out a Windows binary.  This is something that a large number of people have been asking for.  Well, he posted the binary and announced it and we haven't heard a thing since.  Has anyone tried it?  Please give us some feedback and let us know if it is working for you.

Second, I am staring in earnest on the Boolean operations code.  It is very interesting, but don't let anyone ever tell you that boundary classification and boolean operations are trivial.  Wow!  I am diving deep into the literature, but wow!  This is going to be a fun adventure.

Here are a couple of the key references I am working through:

• "Set Membership Classification: A Unified Approach to Geometric Intersection Problems" by R.B. Tilove
• "Boolean Operations in Solid Modeling: Boundary Evaluation and Merging Algorithms" by A. Requicha and H. Voelcker
• "An Introduction to Solid Modeling" by M. Mantyla

There are a bunch more, but this is where I am starting.  You might start to see some code appear in the topology_* files, but I am focusing on Slice and Union for now.

Again, please let us know how the Windows version is working for you.

Cheers,

   Graham

wxWidgets Wildcat.exe

I have added a zip file for Windows. It has Wildcat.exe, various dlls, and some picture files for the toolbar buttons. I don't know how to make an installer, so read the text file that gives you some extra instructions.

Scripting Support

On the Wildcat support forum we recently got a request to add support for the Lua scripting langauge.  If you have used Wildcat you know that currently no scripting languages are supported.  This is more an issue of having higher priorities than a lack of desire.  I am focused on getting the core modeling kernel up and running and Dan is working hard on the wx port and his own work.

I must admit that I have little background in scripting languages and have never embedded an scripting engine into any of my projects.  I fully understand the value of this and look forward to adding support in Wildcat.

To me the two crucial questions are:

1. What scripting languages make sense to support?  There are so many possible languages out there that we can't possibly support them all.  Which ones do you all want?
2. How can we make supporting a large set of scripting languages as easy as possible within the kernel?  I want to make it simple and straightforward to add support for a new language if someone want it.

The Lua requester has asked if we have object model documentation of Wildcat.  The simple answer is "No."  But, I have created a Doxygen configuration file that will generate a lot of very nice documentation automatically.  You can find this file in the source tree at "truck\Documentation\Developer\Doxyfile".  You may have to slightly edit some of the paths to account for your directory structure, but with this you can easily get object models and nice code docs.

Please let me know what else you need in order to try to add scripting to Wildcat.  I am more than happy to add in a Cocoa "script" window etc.  I am we can convince Dan to do this on WX also.

Cheers,

   Graham

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