[Opensim-dev] a region module to visualize the state of a software project (Re: [opensim-dev] interfaces to opensim for sensor network data)

Sun Dec 12 05:11:31 UTC 2010

On Dec 11, 2010, at 8:19 PM, Richard Hackathorn wrote:
> WOW!!! Way to go, Markus! And TY to Toni! Eating our own 'dog food' - YES... 

:) .. The little there is in English now about this opensim's dog food idea, using a VW for software projects and Opensim especially, is at http://www.playsign.fi/web3/Introduction#shared-functional-environments-for-software-projects .. there are still some ideas that are not implemented in current code, like releases being the fruits that the tree produces. Pointed to that originally in April 2009 when wrote the text, but apparently got no replies then -- clearly it helps to have a working implementation and a video :p (http://www.mail-archive.com/opensim-users@lists.berlios.de/msg00974.html). For his thesis, Markus did research into the literature and found some nice similar existing examples from elsewhere too. The diploma thesis is now reviewed at the faculty, not published yet, but I expect it's done soon.

I just emailed Markus forwarding your post, and I think we'll setup an updated version at least locally at our studio  during the beginning week hopefully, so can verify & update the install info to the wiki etc. Or perhaps package a zip with everything preconfigured for a standalone to run this. That's how I got the previous old version that have been running now, just got a copy of the entire opensim/taiga folder from Markus. He doesn't work with us normally, but took leave from his day job to finish his studies at the uni by doing this, and is now back at work etc. so might be fairly busy, but probably can help with setups.

And certainly we want instances of these on public servers too so can really start using! But having a local copy will certainly be a nice way for you to get started with your own work with perhaps similar techniques for the data retrieval etc. It's actually really simple, just normal python xml-rpc etc. I think region modules are the way to make apps using opensim, it's just normal programming (not like LSL where you send text messages to communicate between the different things in the scene, which might be the only way in an untrusted federated env though).

Ping us in a week if haven't heard back..

~Toni

> The video is a WOOOOOT! Downloads as M4V and runs well in Win Media Player. Love the bugs! 
> 
> Excited about the IronPython interface as Region module.
> 
> I would like to replicate this build or something similar. Read thru rexprojectspace wiki and browsed through the py source. 
> 
> Anyone willing to tutor me a bit on technical aspects? Richard
> 
> Richard Hackathorn
> Bolder Technology, Inc. 
> Email: richardh at bolder.com SL: Hack Richard 
> 
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2010 06:28:16 +0200
> From: Toni Alatalo <antont at kyperjokki.fi>
> To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> Cc: realXtend-dev <realxtend-dev at googlegroups.com>
> Subject: [Opensim-dev] a region module to visualize the state of a software project
>      (Re: [opensim-dev] interfaces to opensim for sensor  network data)
> 
> On Nov 27, 2010, at 4:13 AM, Justin Clark-Casey wrote:
> >> I am working on a project to create abstract 'data worlds' based on structures in a relational database. Justin's
> >> proposed approach would be great! If there is anything I can contribute (testing, documentation), please
> > Lo-fi public visualization in OpenSim is an interest of mine.  There has been some interesting stuff done via scripting on the Linden grid but I think there's also a lot of potential for the server-side approach (because of the advantages outlined previously).
> 
> There is one quite new example out there btw, which originally came from the idea of thinking how we could 'eat our own dogfood' in opensim development .. visualizing the state of software projects as virtual worlds, to facilitate interdeveloper communications etc.
> 
> It was developed against the Naali viewer codebase data, as an Opensim region module, but is general enough to work against any software project basically. The code is in http://code.google.com/p/rexprojectspace/ . It creates a quite rich scene on the server entirely from the code in the region module, using data it fetches from various services with http. There's a downloadable video on the project site, http://code.google.com/p/rexprojectspace/downloads/detail?name=rex_beta5.m4v .. demonstrates all these features:
> 
> It pulls information about the code itself, mainly the module / directory structure, from the version control (on github in this case). And shows commit information, the latest commit msg to each dir. And has an object representing each dev, placed where the previous commit from that dev came. And shows bugs as a kind of flying bugs in the air, it gets that info from the tracker we have at google code .. unassigned bugs have different colour.
> 
> Additionally it polls a buildbot to show build/test status -- if tests fail, the tree that shows the commits starts burning .. when tests again succeed, there is rain, and the tree stops burning :) And if someone makes a new branch to git, new branch grows to the tree. And you can click on a commit in the tree to open the info about that commit in a webbrowser (the github commit web view).
> 
> Markus made it as a his diploma thesis work, after found my writeup of the idea in a wiki, and the thesis is finished now .. the writeup is in Finnish though. I think we should write at least a short English article about it too, perhaps have time for that in January or so.
> 
> Plan is to set it somewhere to run and to actual use, and perhaps opensim can adopt it for opensim code too .. and run it on osgrid somewhere :) . So far I've been just running it locally sometimes, but am looking forward to having it always on as a kind of a painting at our studio, so can easily see the status in a nice way :) The visuals etc. are not the greatest, plan is to improve, but it works and is in some way complete .. as a first step, I hope.
> 
> Perhaps also works as an example for the original poster (Richard Hackathorn) for how to create a scene from external data in a region module. It uses modrex 'cause it uses meshes, but the vanilla opensim API to create new objects and assets and to place them etc. It is written in Python, using the IronPython Opensim region module loader Erno wrote a while ago, but the .net API of the Opensim objects is identical with c# usage. Py region modules are nicer to dev 'cause you don't have to restart the simulator while devving your module (I think MRMs have this advantage too?).  The py opensim loader is nowadays hosted by Melanie in some semi official opensim addons repo.
> 
> Markus was quite happy to develop the module, actually said that didn't encounter any bugs. He learned using Blender to model the tree and the leaves etc. for this project too from scratch, and didn't know anything about SL or Opensim or reX before this, so quite an achievement I'd say :)
> 
> ~Toni
> 
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