Ideas for new BRL-CAD contributors
==================================

If someone is interested in contributing to BRL-CAD and doesn't have
an idea of where to begin, included below is a list of ideas of
interest for people to work on.  Each idea has been given a value
between 0 and 9 as a broad indicator of the difficulty and a rough
relative estimate of the expected time involved.

D            
i
f
f
i 
c
u  T
l  i
t  m
y  e  
----------------------------------------------------------------------
0  0  Install and setup BRL-CAD
0  2  Go through the modeling tutorials
0  1  Render pictures
2  2  Model something real
3  1  Make an animation
0  1  Run and collect BRL-CAD Benchmark results
1  4  Run, document, and categorize commands
2  5  Work on the Materials Database
2  5  Work on the Geometry Repository
2  5  Work on the Benchmark Results Database
3  3  Create a Java-based 3D geometry viewer
4  3  Write a SWIG interface to the modeling commands
2  6  Convert documentation to Docbook
1  5  Translate documentation to other languages
2  2  Add Griffen knob support to MGED
3  2  Add SGI knob and button box support to MGED on MacOSX
4  4  Write a new geometry converter
3  3  Write a new image converter
3  3  Write a new data processing utility
4  3  Write a new shader to RT
4  4  Implement a new primitive
2  6  Work on the BRL-CAD website
1  2  Make an overview diagram of BRL-CAD
1  2  Write a BRL-CAD tutorial
2  2  Write a new manual page
3  4  Write a system information tool for the benchmark
4  4  Modify Kaleido to output BRL-CAD geometry

*  *  Fix one of the bugs listed in the BUGS file
*  *  Fix one of the bugs listed in the bug tracker
*  *  Implement one of the items listed in the TODO file
*  *  Implement a requested feature from the RFE tracker

---
There may be more tasks and ideas available in the Tasks section of
the project website at
http://sourceforge.net/pm/task.php?group_project_id=35563&group_id=105292


Major Domains
-------------
CAD
Solid Modeling
CADD
CAE
CAM/MCAD
Ray-tracing
Modeling (non-solid)
FEM

Geometry Types
--------------
Vehicles
Buildings
People
Terrain
Cities
Things (Built/Manufactured)
Plants
Animals
Insects
Marine Life

Geometry Representations
------------------------
Explicit Boundary
	Polygonal
		Triangles
		Quadrilaterals
	Spline Surfaces
		NURBS
	Wireframe
Implicit Primitives
	CSG
Volumetric (voxels)
Textual

Primitives
----------
prep
shot
medial axis
bounding box
bounding sphere
surface area
volume
centroid

Major Work Areas
----------------
Geometry Database
Representation Conversions
Importers/Exporters
Geometry Editing
Global Illumination
Animation
Visualization
Geometric Evaluation
Materials Database

Major Work Breakdown
--------------------
STEP Conversion
Parts Library
Graphical Geometry Browser
Raytracer Backend Library
Geometry Engine
Raytrace Server
Geometry Server
Polygonal Editing
BREP Editing
Multirep Support
BZW Conversion
OBJ Conversion
X3D Export
Collada Conversion
Povray Conversion
New Modeling Interface
Annotations
Dimensioning
Constraints
Parametrics
Windows Platform Support
Material Properties Browser
Inverse Kinematics
Nonlinear Editing
Radiosity Renderer
Path Tracer
Voxelization Library
API Documentation
Website
OpenGL Visualization
Geometry Editing Library
Testing Infrastructure
Geometry Types Diagram
Feature Edit operations
Revision history

Work Breakdown Structure
------------------------
Requirements & Reasoning (why?)
Features & Capabilities (what?)
Benefactors & Proponents (who?)
Benefits
Tasks broken down into one month effort
Aggregate tasks indicate integration effort
