[ANN][WIP] Library & app for 3D visualization system

[Banlu Kemiyatorn]

Dear GNUstep people,
I have been working on these for a while after looking at that SNAP
thing I decided to put up this premature announcement.

First, I am working on a framework called AP3, which abbreviates
nothing but stands for ape coz I love monkey.

AP3 is a 3D application development framework which currently included
a basic scene graph, a sample OpenGL view to display 3D information
currently just some meshes, but all the goals are

  * Data model, built around COLLADA, has a quite complete and working
COLLADA parser which I barely use, however.
  * Basic object or view, heavily inspired by Blender's internal data
structure (unnecessarily), these basic view objects are in so many way
like NSView, just in 3D. The model data above can be shared and
exchanged and ID'ed between basic view objects (Think of duplicate
linked, if you know Blender). They might have a single parent and
children objects just like NSView... and any scene graph system. The
APIs will also try to imitate NSView's, but with additional Z axis,
having 3D ray "hitTest" to map the mouse action, well you get the
picture.
  * Animation system, time-based with graphs, FK/IK
  * Rendering engine backend(s), quite like GNUstep's rendering
backend but more visible and can have more than 1 of them working at
the same time. The rendering engine backends  can be either used for
shading 3D data model which attached shading language (eg. GLSL or
Renderman) over an NSOpenGLView or invoking other photo realistic
renderer, the first idea is to support Aqsis renderer. The default
real time engine should be extensible enough for general purpose
rendering but it will not define a strict display API like GNUstep's
display backend.
  * 2D raster engine. This engine is a rewrite of my own maliwan
project. It can be used to implement procedural texture generation
also a GIMP clone if you want to make one. The data model was built
around lcms library which dealt with ICC color profile management.
Mainly the old node system will be rewritten since I think I have a
better design for that based on DAG'ed invocations (which will also be
used in the procedural 3D modeling)

  This project can be described as a fork of GNUstep 3DKit but didn't
share the code (not anymore, I think).

Second project, I called this one 3Σ, which will utilize the AP3
framework, is just like GORM but in 3D though has way cooler name. It
will include many 3D modeling functionalities as I want to make this
one a Houdini killer and ... I can just dream about that for now, the
first phase would just be able to use it to layout the scene and
linking methods and properties' relationships and generate a GORM
file?!?!

The website of the project is at http://mus3.sourceforge.net/ which
currently has no source code pool (or it did? must be pretty
obsolete). I'm managing the code that some part was GPL'ed but the
project should be at least LGPL so this will take some time to make a
release or put it in public. Beside that, most parts need a clean up
and I am migrating clean source (now 2 files) into my local git and
will have it on-line ASAP.

If anyone is interested and want to join the development you can write me.

Links
* http://mus3.sourceforge.net
* http://qstx.blogspot.com/search/label/3%CE%A3

Thanks,
Banlu Kemiyatorn

I'm making a living as a 3D modeling and animation artist and is quite
busy with that for < 4 USD/h. Sponsorship is welcome if you want me to
focus on this project, or of course you can just out source me a 3D or
2D painting job.


-- 
    .----.     Banlu Kemiyatorn
  /.../\...\   Free Software Yogi
 |.../  \...|  漫画家 GZSC
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