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Unified Transparent Previews #22

Open kadet1090 opened 2 weeks ago

kadet1090 commented 2 weeks ago

Proposal description

The goal is to introduce new feature preview system, including transparent previews that can be used in Part and Part Design (and other deriving from Part). I already started working on this feature for Part Design, but without funds it would be hard for me to find enough time to make this feature more generic. This grant should also cover any necessary fixes to problems found after feature gets merged.

Draft PR: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/17249

This also aims to be the first stage for unification of Part and Part Design workbenches. The next stages of that would be:

  1. Add more multi solid capabilities to Part Design (planned for this release cycle)
  2. Allow using features from other workbenches in Part Design workbench (planned for this release cycle)
  3. Merge duplicated features together (Extrude / Pad / Pocket, Chamfer, Fillet etc) (would be controversial - planned for next release cycle)

Deliverables

Timeline

I already started the implementation and I plan to deliver full feature by the end of 2024, but hopefully it should be sooner. Across the timeline I plan to submit probably few additional PRs containing necessary refactors, but I am not able to predict when that will happen.

Risks and mitigation

I'm full-time employed at university so my time available for FreeCAD can vary depending on various factors. With that in mind the timeline provided here can change. As mitigation I want to receive funds only upon completion full completion of the task. If for any reason I won't be able to complete the task I'll inform the FPA so the frozen funds can be realocated for other purposes.

Compensation

I'd like to receive 1500 EUR of total compensation for this project, paid upon successful merge of the feature.

About you

I'm Kacper Donat aka, kadet (forums) or kadet1090 (GH). I have around 15 years of experience in programming in various languages, software architecture. Lately I also gained a bit of UX experience. Currently I am employed at GdanskTech as Senior Developer / Architect. I have around 50 merged PRs on FreeCAD repo, most of which are related to FreeCAD UX.

chennes commented 2 weeks ago

Thank you for the grant application, @kadet1090. I have forwarded your proposal onto the Grant Review Committee for consideration. If they (or anyone else) have questions they'll post them here. The review process typically takes about two weeks, after which the FPA has two weeks of voting. I will keep you posted about the process of your proposal as it progresses through these steps.

macdroid53 commented 2 weeks ago

Would the Sketch location visualization benefit from this?

kadet1090 commented 2 weeks ago

That is on my todo list, but it does not depend on this grant. This is similar area so it may be covered by the accompanying features but I think that PR for that should be ready before voting for this grant happens.

yorikvanhavre commented 2 weeks ago

I'm not sold on the Part / PartDesign "unification". Both have VERY different assumptions (to start with, Part tools just work with any other geometry and are not confined to a body or any other specific behaviour, while PartDesign enforces a series of practices). Sometimes one needs one, other times one needs the other. By merging, for ex. Extrude and Pad, you'll need to either remove the Placement of Extrude or add a Placement to Pad, any of this will mean angry people :)

But that's of course another debate. The features presented in this proposal seem awesome. Draft tools such as Move also use "previews", and BIM toolsl would benefit that a lot too. Having an unified system would be very good.

macdroid53 commented 2 weeks ago

"Both have VERY different assumptions"

There has been a very long and considered discussion of this in the DWG. With plenty of consideration to the "different assumptions". The sound bite "Part/PD unification" does not do the concepts that were discussed justice. It is, at this point, just a concept, but, it is far more thought out and logical than any I've seen before.

The reference to it in this proposal is simply that this would be useful if those concepts were to be implemented. As you say, this is the wrong place for the discussion of that concept.

On Tue, Nov 12, 2024 at 8:28 AM Yorik van Havre @.***> wrote:

I'm not sold on the Part / PartDesign "unification". Both have VERY different assumptions (to start with, Part tools just work with any other geometry and are not confined to a body or any other specific behaviour, while PartDesign enforces a series of practices). Sometimes one needs one, other times one needs the other. By merging, for ex. Extrude and Pad, you'll need to either remove the Placement of Extrude or add a Placement to Pad, any of this will mean angry people :)

But that's of course another debate. The features presented in this proposal seem awesome. Draft tools such as Move also use "previews", and BIM toolsl would benefit that a lot too. Having an unified system would be very good.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/FreeCAD/FPA-grant-proposals/issues/22#issuecomment-2470530166, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABUD5CBGFFXFG4E7Z3PHIIT2AH66RAVCNFSM6AAAAABRPJI2A6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDINZQGUZTAMJWGY . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

kadet1090 commented 2 weeks ago

I'm not sold on the Part / PartDesign "unification". Both have VERY different assumptions (to start with, Part tools just work with any other geometry and are not confined to a body or any other specific behaviour, while PartDesign enforces a series of practices). Sometimes one needs one, other times one needs the other. By merging, for ex. Extrude and Pad, you'll need to either remove the Placement of Extrude or add a Placement to Pad, any of this will mean angry people :)

Any potential merge is still a looong way ahead, steps mentioned here (excluding the last one) are more about aligning the two workbenches from code and available features perspective. Completing each of them will provide substantial value on it's own - i.e. full multi-body capabilities in PD and even if in the end we decide against unifying them they will at least have the same capabilities and only differ by workflow. The most important goal is to ensure that you are never limited in terms what you can do by the workbench choice.

But that's of course another debate. The features presented in this proposal seem awesome. Draft tools such as Move also use "previews", and BIM toolsl would benefit that a lot too. Having an unified system would be very good.

Thanks for mentioning that! I I'll not be able to provide previews for each tool (scope could become too big) but I should be able to at least provide reference implementation for each workbench so it can be used to implement this for other features.

yorikvanhavre commented 1 week ago

provide reference implementation for each workbench so it can be used to implement this for other features.

That's what I imagined, of course that would be beyond the scope of this job to look at each and every Python workbench, but having a well-defined structure and system to do that kind of "preview" objects would be a huge step forward already.

chennes commented 6 days ago

The Grant Review Committee supports funding of this proposal. Some of their comments:

"This is IMO exactly the type of grant that FPA should support. Implementing a long standing feature request for a reasonable price."

"Great feature. worth every penny. I'm in favor."

"Have seen his work so expect this to be the same high quality."

"Full support for this from my side."

This grant will now go to a vote of the FPA members. That process can take up to two weeks: I will keep you posted of the results when we know them