Mon, 02/14/2022 - 12:18
Open Cascade presented at FOSDEM 2022!
FOSDEM is a worldwide event organized to promote the widespread use of free and open source software. FOSDEM 2022 was fully digital gathering thousands of free and open source software developers from all over the world.
Open Cascade participated in FOSDEM for the third time. This year the presentation “Open CASCADE Technology (OCCT) Status Update” included two major topics: the main OCCT 7.6.0 release features and new opportunities for OCCT community.
In the first part of the presentation our expert in the field of geometric algorithms and certified Open CASCADE Technology (OCCT) trainer, Alexander Malyshev covered numerous OCCT 7.6.0 features, including advances in STEP translator, face maximization tool, Boolean Operators, extrema, offset, AIS etc. He started with general release updates like the option of building OCCT without XLib and then highlighted improvements by modules. In particular, he mentioned a simple method for drawing shadows from directional light sources in Visualization, reading support of Draco-compressed glTF files, adding entities representing STEP kinematics and writer for OBJ format in Data Exchange and partial loading of OCAF document that reduces the reading time. Then Alexander shared the plans for OCCT 7.7.0 like adding thread reentrancy in STEP translator and dropping support of pre-C++11 compilers emphasizing his hands-on experience in the improvement process.
The second part of the presentation was devoted to new community opportunities. Open CASCADE Technology Community Manager Vera Sdobnova started with easing the access to technology including publishing free OCCT trainings. She introduced a Novice guide as a part of documentation aiming to help new users with OCCT onboarding process. In addition, she mentioned other documentation improvements like Samples restructure and added highlighting for code snippets. Then the launch of the new developer website was covered including single sign-on, revised forums structure, and updated Get Involved section expanding the ways to contribute to OCCT development. Vera also introduced two recently launched website sections. The first is OCCT projects and products marketplace for sharing information about OCCT-based products. The second is Research & Science Publications Listing gathering >600 OCCT-based research and scientific works. Vera covered the plans of implementing a fully digital CLA signing process, working on OCCT rebranding, launching a technical blog, and inviting external authors. She encouraged the users to share their thoughts, ideas for collaboration, and information about the projects or articles they work on.
The talk was followed by a live Q&A session.
Thank you to FOSDEM 2022 organizers for an opportunity to share OCCT status update and to community for active participation!
Watch Open CASCADE Technology status update presentation at FOSDEM 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilkc9tZ8V0Q
