User:HooglyBoogly/GSoC2019/Final Report

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= GSoC 2019: Custom Bevel Profiles Final Report =

By the end of the summer the bevel profiles branch is in a functional state with just a few small bugs to fix and one smaller feature left to add. The code is ready for review and shared with Blender developers and the community on developer.blender.org.

Diff from master

Commit History vs. master

Profile Widget
An important part of the usability of the feature is the ability to define a profile in the UI rather than in the viewport. This widget provides that ability.
 * The profile widget is derived from the existing "CurveMapping" widget, but the curve is built to be a path instead of a mapping between X and Y.
 * Profile sampling methods: More curved areas get more samples, and points can be sharp as well. There's also an "Even Length Sampling" option.
 * The interaction methods are changed for profiles and hotkeys are added.
 * The widget should be extendible for other situations where splines need to be edited directly in the UI.
 * RNA API for the widget included.

Bevel Custom Profile

 * Added custom profile bevel cases, removed existing assumptions and special cases.
 * New "pipe case" for parallel edges which reuses profile positions.
 * Profile orientation regularization: Method to ensure that the side of the start of the profile is consistent along groups of edges.
 * Presets: Moldings and steps, etc...

Bevel cutoff intersection method

 * Method chops off each profile at the boundary of each vertex mesh.
 * Leaves room for Boolean method in the future.

Bevel tool and modifier UI

 * In addition to adding the new features, updates to streamline and unify both interfaces.

Bevel code cleanup and documentation

 * Added Lots of comments on the existing bevel code where I worked, changed some variable names, and some other refactoring.
 * The code should be more readable, which has already helped me, so hopefully it will help someone else in the future.

The Process
Feedback and communication with the community was an essential part of this project. That took place in two threads on the Blender DevTalk forum.

Weekly Reports Thread Here I posted the features I completed at the end of each week and my plan for the next week.

Discussion and Feedback Thread Here we prioritized and planned new additions with feedback from the awesome Blender community. This is an essential part of the process and my project would have been much less successful without it. Notable discussions included prioritizing my time working on intersection methods and discussion about the bevel UI.

Daily Log In addition to the weekly reports I also kept a daily log over the course of the summer, mostly to organize my own thoughts, but if anyone read some of it during the summer that's an added bonus too.