wwp@yahoogroups.com:
The Google Summer of Code 2007 Story
yuval_levy 2007-Sep-07 21:39:00
Hi all, the Google Summer of Code is coming to an end. October 6 Pablo
d'Angelo, Ken Turkowski and myself will represent the panotools/hugin
initiative at the Mentor Summit hosted by Google October 6.
Time for a look back and an outlook on Open Source panorama stitching
software development.
**LOOK BACK**
Feb 17, Pablo launches the idea of participating in the Summer of Code
<http://groups.google.com/group/hugin-ptx/browse_thread/thread/cd5806ebee...>
Feb 18, Yuval picks up the ball and starts to write the application
<http://wiki.panotools.org/wiki/index.php?title=Google_SoC_2007&oldid...>
A winning team started to grow. Together, the community of developers
around hugin went on to be admitted to Google's Summer of Code 2007 on
their first attempt and completed the challenge successfully.
Using his academic contacts, Pablo brought on board first class
mentors of academic reputation while Yuval used his community contacts
to rally support and prepare the application with Google.
While Pablo was still completing his PhD, Yuval set up an organization
so that Pablo's unique expertise could be leveraged to the maximum on
all projects.
The initiative grew and was able to obtain sponsorship for five
students, each surrounded by a team of expert mentors.
With Pablo giving technical leadership and Yuval giving organizational
leadership, surrounded by a steering committee of key players from the
panoramic community and mentored by experts, four of the five students
completed their projects successfully.
One had to be failed at mid term for bad performance, but not after a
major effort involving five mentors around the clock that earned the
team Google's program office respect and admiration.
The other four students completed their projects successfully, helping
panorama making open source software and particularly hugin and FreePV
leap forward.
**HUGIN <http://hugin.sf.net/>**
hugin is the most advanced open source panorama stitching solution. It
received three major improvements:
* Zoran Mesec has written Autopano-Z, a new feature/detection matching
tool that will free hugin from the restrictions of the patented SIFT
algorithm.
* Jing Jin has produced a deghosting tool that will come handy in the
production of HDR panoramas in dynamic environments.
* Ippei Ukai has refactored most of hugin's code, providing a
framework for faster and better future expension through a modular GUI.
these improvements will show up in the next two hugin releases.
**FREEPV <http://freepv.sf.net/>**
FreePV is the only alternative for Linux users to see QTVR and SPi-V
panoramas in their full splendor. Leon Moctezuma expanded on the
existing QTVR functionality , added SPi-V support and cleaned up the
code base.
**OUTLOOK**
The summer was very exciting, with a presentation by Jing of her work
at the IVRPA conference in Berkeley and by Pablo and Ippei of hugin at
the Panotools Meeting in Lucerne. The invitation to Google's Mentor
Summit is the icing on the cake.
At the end of the summer, the code base for hugin and FreePV had
improved considerably and the developers are now working to package
and release it to general public.
Moreover, the initiative has received further sponsorship by Agnos
Engineering who donated a new Agnos MrotatorU unit to every student
and their primary mentors.
The summer is over, but not so the development of hugin. The Summer of
code has brought a new dynamic and fresh ideas into the team. It has
united and energized us like very few things before.
It was good to have four paid full time developers work on the code,
but the project can not afford this without Google's sponsorship and
the development pace will inevitably slow down.
But development will continue and we'll be back for the Summer of Code
2008, should Google elect to run the program again.
We thank our students, mentors and steering committee for the work
done; Google and Agnos for the generous sponsorships; and you, the
panoramic community, for your continue use and support of hugin/panotools!
See you next time!
Yuv