Call for Projects: University Collaboration in Toulouse

[Torsten Rahn]

Hi,

On Freitag, 17. August 2012 12:44:41 Kevin Ottens wrote:
> On Thursday 16 August 2012 20:23:24 Torsten Rahn wrote:
> > On Donnerstag, 16. August 2012 12:12:12 Kevin Ottens wrote:
> > On behalf of the Marble Team I'd like to express our highest interest in
> > participation!
> 
> OK, you're on the list now! ;-)

Thanks. 

> > The two mentors we'd provide are Dennis and me.
> OK, FYI I allocated to you the "customer" role and Dennis the technical
> mentor role, let me know if you prefer the other way around.

That's cool (actually that will be quite likely the actual setup). 

I haven't talked to Thibaut Gridel yet, but I guess you can probably add him 
as our francophone mentor/contact/evil-marble-world-domination-conspirist. He 
lives close to Paris IIRC. 
 
> I simplified that a bit in the proposal in three points:
>  * Complete support for OSM vector tiles
>  * Optimize the vector tile pipeline
>  * Setup server for vector tiles
> 
> This way I could pick a few topics on your list below to have some
> diversity

Sounds fine for a start. 

About the alternative topics I listed: Here are a few links that give a bit of 
an insight what this would deal with:

Time & Animation:
-------------------------
Enhance Marble to be able to deal with Animations on the GeoData-Level. This 
would allow to display KML and GPX files in a time-based manner, see:

https://developers.google.com/kml/documentation/time

Extending Marble for better support of Historic Maps:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Marble can display Historical maps:

http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Marble/HistoricalMaps

We need Marble to be extended to allow for a better user experience for this 
particular use case (KML compliant tooltips, refactoring of the Marble sidebar 
panel, etc.). So this task is about adding more C++ code - but it would also 
allow the students to add more map data if they desire. 

GeoCaching
-----------------
We had Daniel Marth working on a GeoCaching Plugin for Marble already. But 
this code never was merged into master due to licensing issues 

http://www.opencaching.de/index.php?locale=EN 

The situation there has apparently changed. This task would be about making 
the plugin ready for inclusion (involves UI changes, API changes, talk to the 
people providing data, etc.)

Space + Astronomy
--------------------------
This topic is about making Marble more interesting as a tool for all things 
Astronomy and Space Science. We currently have an ESA sponsored project going 
on which deals with satellite and eclipse display.
But there's still enough left to do on the feature map:

* 360 degree Panorama displays in Marble (for Earth, Mars, Venus, Titan etc.) 
* Improved Stars plugin (Constellations, accurate rendering for different 
planets, etc.) 


I guess we could also need some more help to improve Marble's OpenGL view - 
which could be a different topic.

Best Regards,

Torsten

> 
> in the proposal:
> > Of course other topics for Marble work are welcome as well. Possible
> > alternatives could cover Space + Astronomy, Historic Maps, Routing,
> > GeoCaching, Natural Earth vector tile rendering (topographic map), Time &
> > Animation KML enhancements, etc.
> 
> Regards.