Meeting Purpose:

Agenda for 07 June 2006 Shape Tools meeting

• discuss prior cycle feedback, pros, cons, lessons learned
• discuss transition of reponsibility for ShapeViewer

Review prior weeks to do items

• CCB Presentation

New Business

• Discuss machine / dev environment issues
• Reccomendations by Jeff per future of ShapeViewer
• How to increase usage of shape tools libraries and programs
• Possible role of group as CCB algorithm techology transfer agents.

Discussed

• CCB Presentation
  • question was raised about why do we not use OpenDX (answer could go to FAQ)
• feedback for prior development cycle
  • we did not test on multiple platforms early enough (fix: test early)
  • did not get adequate user feedback on tools accuracy or quirks
  • last minute changes occured.
• Lessons Learned
  • during testing of a particular product, vary the order in which tests occur to expose sequence dependent bugs.
  • develop and test simultaneously on all supported platforms.
  • early relase and use! of products to get feedback.
• discuss transition of reponsibility for ShapeViewer
  • Craig to take over
  • Want all tools in final form , in CVS. Must be buildable as-is on CVS checkout.
  • Jeff suggests future development of ShapeViewer include support for plug-in loadable features.
• Current Work
  • Jeff fixing problem with VFSBrowser (overwrites parent JFrame window)
  • BaeCheol - validating Mean Curvature
• Future directions of ShapeTools program
  • Improve accessibility to developers by
    • envangelism (of matlab, R interfaces)
    • JNI interfaces to C, C++
  • replace aging C based tools:
    • UcfMeasure
    • Flattening tools
  • make in-house analytical tools available to non-loni researchers
  • interoperablity (e.g. with D. Shattuck data formats)
• Qualifications for new programmer
  • JNI expertise
  • Java3D expertise
• difficulty of getting software from the web site
  • Most web sites have direct access to software (e.g. "click here to download binary")
  • TWiki based documentation is clumsy, looks unapealling to average (researcher) user.
  • Updates to downloadable software are slow , go through intermediate packaging steps and people.
  • Can we get a ShapeTools web site attached to main loni site. Perhaps the TWiki "edit" buttons can be disabled.
  • the Apache software sites are an example of what could be done.
  • we want to improve our web presence
• Development machines (what to get for BaeCheol^?)
  • we need to develop on all three architectures
  • Mac dual boot (Mac, Windows) machines may be an answer

Decisions

To do for Next meeting

• [ ] - Craig demo viewer, software to others
• [ ] - Craig - Investigate Precision Issue: decide if go to double prec., investigate UCF truncation of small numbers to 0.00000
• [ ] - Craig - ShapeIO to/from metadata
• [ ] - Craig - extend OpenDX support to include file offset, external files.
• [ ] - Craig, (with jeff) extend Viewer to colorize DX vector attributes
• [ ] - Craig -Decide what machine to get BC
• [ ] - Craig Get Keys for BaeCheol
• [ ] - Craig ShapeViewer DX Attribute colorization (with Jeff)
• [ ] - Craig - phone interview
• [ ] - Craig - discuss web download / web site issues with Linda
• [ ] - BaeCheol - Complete Mean Curvature
• [ ] - BaeCheol - begin quad triangulation method
• [ ] - Jeff - Complete VFS Browser
• [ ] - Jeff - (with craig) extend ShapeViewer DX attribute colorization
• [ ] - Jeff - Add class comment to all ShapeViewer classes, decribing it's purpose and responsibilities