[osg-users] osgQt + OSG 3.6.2 Status

[Robert Osfield]

?!?! gmail just sent the email mid sentence....

> That exactly the same can be said for the OSG.  Doesn't mean

Mean't to say:

On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 at 10:20, Robert Osfield <robert.osfield at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Now, there are huge firms that adopted Qt for decades and run multi billion dollars systems on it.

The exactly the same can be said about the OSG.  It's widely used for
decades on serious extensive kit.

However, this doesn't mean that OSG isn't flawless and can't be improved upon.

With modern C++ with have opportunities to do a number of things far
more cleanly that previously possible.  This applies to the scene
graphs just as much UI's.

The future of C++ application development will be better served by
successors to the OSG and Qt.

Right now such successors are just embryonic ideas, or nuggets of
prototypes.  For current application development which need cross
platform widgets may be best served by Qt, same as the graphics
application development may be bested served by the OSG.  Current
applications will be around for many years to come so Qt and OSG will
need to be maintained.

For my own part I'm committed to maintaining the OSG.  For 3.6.x I
moved osgQt out of the core to allow members of the OSG community who
have the need for Qt support and the expertise to know how to maintain
it the ability to make decisions, implementation solutions and provide
proper maintenance for it - something I can't do personally as I don't
have the Qt expertise, nor the time.

This thread is a bit worrying as despite me handing the keys over to
osgQt development to the community doesn't yet seem to be able to
resolve all the problems by themselves.  Yes the source code to both
Qt, osgQt and the OSG are all available, but unless developers step up
things don't happen.  This suggest perhaps we need a bit more
motivated manpower from the Qt/OSG community to help push osgQt
forward.  So if you feel passionate about Qt then please step forward
and help out.

--

As a little prod for the long term future.  With UI's and 2D rendering
API adopting scene graph internally (by this I don't mean Qt3D) and
more UI/2D rendering being done down on the GPU there is a possible
convergence.  Could one have a scene graph that is general purpose
enough to be used directly to do 2D UI's as well as 3D real-time
graphics?  Could one implement the UI as an add on to the core scene
graph, just a you'd made a game engine or image generator that builds
ontop of a scene graph??

So... I'm writing a new scene graph, yes I'm focused on it being used
for 3D, but I'm aware that Vulkan does compute just as nicely as it
does 3D, and it also works just fine for 2D too.  If you can have a
scene graph just work as a compute graph, as well as 3D rendering
graph then 2D rendering is also just another subset.  Could an
enterprising engineer build a fully function UI ontop of it?  Maybe.

Even if it doesn't come to pass for my VSG work, this is how I feel we
should all be thinking about the future - we should be thinking out of
the box, thinking about where we could get it if we strive for it,
rather than settling for the status quo.  Yes yes the OSG and Qt are
impressive in a number of ways, but they have but of all encompassing
monsters that are at there peak.  Better solutions will follow on, if
they don't the computer industry is failing to progress as it should.

Robert.