On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Gabriela Voll <gvoll...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello all, I am Gabriela Voll a junior at Hunter College in New York City, > that double majors in Computer Science and Studio Art. I have a very strong > knowledge of c++ and am learning python and java. Knowledge of advanced data > structures, and computer law. > > I've been lurking for a couple days while I got to know more about this > project and program and I'm interested in creating a STEP exporter and/ > Importer.
Welcome! STEP import and export is definitely one of our hot interest areas. > I realize that for the program we are supposed to expand on the project > ideas, but in this case the only way I could see expanding it would be to > include more formats onto of the already implemented AP203 and the suggested > additions AP203e2, AP214, AP242. At the moment, the only importer we have is AP203, and our exporter for AP214 is in its early stages. There is a *lot* to be done. > Is there something else i should be thinking about in regard to how I could > expand this project? It really comes down to what you are interested in. One concrete suggestion might be to add support for importing and assembling files that just store a collection of surfaces, without encoding the Brep topology that actually makes them into a solid volume. For example, we can't currently import STEP files from OpenVSP: http://www.openvsp.org/wiki/doku.php?id=step Doing so will require not just reading in the geometry, but deducing the topology from the orientation of the surfaces (or, as an easier first step, developing the ability to manually assemble a Brep in BRL-CAD from a collection of individual surfaces.) This would involve both STEP importer work and some work with our "brep" command, with lots of potential features beyond those basics (in theory, for example, a combined 2D "graph" view of UV surfaces and edges and a 3D wireframe of those surfaces could make for an excellent "helper" GUI for assembling volumes). Such a project would add very useful functionality, particularly if the recognition of Brep "volumes" can be automated. Another possibility would be to focus on import and export of mesh geometry (triangles and/or polygons rather than NURBS surfaces.) STEP isn't used as often for mesh geometry, but it definitely can be. Most of the work in creating a "new" importer or exporter is a) figuring out what bits can be re-used (if you look at the AP214 exporter you will notice that a lot (but not all) of the AP203 bits turned out to be reusable) and b) figuring out how to map STEP entities to/from BRL-CAD entities. The latter is often a bit less than totally straightforward - for example, 2D drawings stored as NURBS curves in a STEP file should (in principle) import to a sketch object, but our sketch object (if I recall correctly) doesn't support all the entity types that STEP defines for 2D geometry (there's another possible project idea.) There are txt files in src/conv/step that list all of the entity types defined by the various AP schemas. Does any of that jump out as specifically interesting? Cheers, CY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech _______________________________________________ BRL-CAD Developer mailing list brlcad-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/brlcad-devel
