BRL-CAD Python bindings

[drossberg]

Outline

Implement bindings for the BRL-CAD functionality to Python programming language

Details

There are long time on-going efforts to wrap BRL-CAD functionality with python code, e.g.

• https://github.com/kanzure/python-brlcad
• https://github.com/nmz787/python-brlcad-tcl

These projects are however still in early development stages.

Expected Outcome

A Python module which can read and write BRL-CAD databases, and provide access to their contents to read, create, and modify the objects.

Project Properties

Skills

• C/C++
• Python

Difficulty

This project may be of easy or medium difficulty, depending on your familiarity and expertise.

Size

This project can be scoped medium (175h) or long (350h), depending on the amount of functionality you want to include.

Additional Information

• Potential mentor(s):
  Daniel Rossberg
  Sean Morrison
• Organization website: https://brlcad.org
• Communication channels: https://brlcad.zulipchat.com

[aniketjohri23]

Hello mentors, I am interested in working on this project. Can you give me a starting point to work on this.

[brlcad]

Hello @aniketjohri23 -- the starting points are listed in the project description. There are two previous efforts. The most recent in 2018 has additional information you can read up on at https://brlcad.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2018

He published a summary at https://medium.com/@Mr_Jaypee/brl-cads-python-procedural-geometry-990e3c286a63

You'll need to review and understand those prior efforts in order to propose something meaningful. There are lots of possibilities but one of the most basic is described above -- update/create the ability to read, write, and modify objects using python. An extension I think would be really powerful is the ability to define a script entity in BRL-CAD that could be described by python (or ged script or lua script, etc).

[anirban-1009]

I am interested in the Project can anyone post with the details of this project?

[drossberg]

I think, you found our Zulip channel, right?

[anirban-1009]

yes!

…

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[niuniuzhao]

Hello there! I am an architecture student and a GSoC2024 applicant. I'm very interested in this project because it seems like a great fit! Could you please advise whether the scope of the project would be within the reach for someone with sophomore computer science knowledge - wide introduction + data structures (and a lot of motivation, of course)? I love a challenge but also don't want to overshoot too much. :) Thanks!

[drossberg]

Hi @niuniuzhao, thanks for your interest in BRL-CAD. Welcome!

The BRL-CAD Python API could indeed be an easy project, depending on what is easy for you. You should be firm in C, C++ (more passive, i.e. reading), and Python (writing code) and you should have a sense of API design.

If you are still interested, you should familiarize yourself with our software first:

• Install BRL-CAD. You can find binary packages for Windows at https://github.com/BRL-CAD/brlcad/releases. This will install over 200 programs. Most of them are small command line tools. The most interesting for you are our old but still heavily used GUI mged and the more modern GUI archer.
• Go through the mged tutorial https://brlcad.org/w/images/c/cf/Introduction_to_MGED.pdf. The tutorial will show you how to create geometries, assign materials, create ray-trace images, and many more.

For discussions, we have our Zulip chat.

[Parv-gugnani]

hello i want to help how can i contribute

[drossberg]

Hi @Parv-gugnani, welcome! For you applies the same as for niuniuzhao ;)