[Bf-committers] GSoc 2008 Proposal: Freestyle integration into Blender

[Maxime Curioni]

Hello,
I am a Master's student studying computer graphics at Tsinghua University,
in Beijing, China. Studying rendering algorithms and wanting to participate
in the Google Summer of Code 2008, I have been looking for interesting
projects for Blender. I stumbled upon the Freestyle project (
http://freestyle.sourceforge.net) and its call for developers for
integrating it into Blender. I have since then contacted one of the original
authors, Stéphane Grabli, and asked him if he was still interested in acting
as a mentor for such a pursuit. Stéphane told me that he would be available
to supervise that endeavor. I am now turning to the Blender community to
make sure it is still interested in the project, gather some feedback and
see whether someone from the developer team could also be involved as a
mentor.

Besides participating in the Google Summer of Code, my motivations are many.
First of all, ever since Blender was released to the open source community,
I have wanted to participate in the developer team but haven't taken the
time to do so. This would be a tremendous opportunity to jump onboard,
especially getting deeper in the source code and learning about how a 3D
graphics engine is structured and coded. My second motivation is to continue
learning about my field of study. I am currently learning about global
illumination implementations and I think working on this project (even
though I know it is not GI related) could teach me a lot about other areas
of rendering. Finally, I see this project as a tremendous challenge on many
levels, technically of course (implementing shading languages, understanding
Blender's architecture...) but also scientifically (learning about NPR
algorithms)  and humanly (managing a decentralized project, getting involved
in an open source project...). Stéphane has also mentioned to me that many
people from the Blender community have requested this feature in Blender, so
the level of expectation is also a great motivation factor.

I have browsed through Blender's wiki and its pages on the GSoC,
specifically the requirements for applying. I humbly feel that I fulfill all
the requirements except for the deep knowledge of Blender. I believe I have
the programming level in C/C++ and Python to fully and correctly carry out
porting Freestyle. As an undergraduate student at ENST (my engineering
school in France), I have been involved in two OpenGL projects, one
implementing Catmull-Clark and Doo-Sabin subdivision schemes and another
recalibrating 3D meshes with their corresponding texture maps. This past
semester, I have implemented Henrik Wann Jensen's hierarchical BSSRDF
technique into PBRT. I unfortunately haven't had the occasion to use
interfacing libraries like SWIG but I do not think it is a real obstacle for
integrating Freestyle. Also, I have no full-time internship planned for next
summer, so I am fully available. My classes end around June 11, but I would
start working when the GSoC coding phase begins. Except for the SIGGRAPH
conference that I am planning on attending, I am free until the beginning of
September. I will be available for the weekly IRC meetings and am committed
to give weekly progress reports.

Regarding my real deficiencies for the project, I must note that I am not an
experienced Blender user and have not yet studied Blender's sources. Last
summer, I bought and read the "Essential Blender" book and have studied many
video tutorials from the Blender Underground and Blender Newbies websites. I
hope that this will not be a crucial drawback, as I want to continue
learning more about Blender. On the knowledge of Blender's source code, I
intend on getting familiar with it during the project. More precisely, I
have looked at the GSoC's timeline and I believe I have enough time to
understand the relevant parts of the source code: GSoC student applications
end on March 31 and coding starts on May 26. I have enough time to work on
my proposal until the end of the month and I have about two and half months
to get fully up to speed This seems reasonable, provided someone in the
Blender developer team can help me in that process. I am aware of my lack of
experience in Blender and of the many technical challenges ahead, but
getting past them is also part of my motivation.

I probably sent a long email, didn't I... Sorry about that ! I wanted to
test the waters before starting writing a GSoC proposal. I really hope that
the Blender team is still interested in such a project. I just want to
finish by saying that of course, if I am chosen to integrate Freestyle into
Blender, I intend on investing a lot of effort on the project, before and
after the GSoC. I am now all ears for your feedback. I welcome all remarks,
comments and suggestions.

Regards,
Maxime Curioni
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