[osg-users] Announcement: VulkanSceneGraph and SceneGraphTestBed!

[Robert Osfield]

Hi All,

I am delighted to say that today I began work on VulkanSceneGraph, an
all new scene graph that builds upon Vulkan and modern C++.  This new
project can be thought of a new family member, the child of
OpenSceneGraph project.  As it's a family member I've created the
project repository alongside the OpenSceneGraph within the github
openscenegraph account:

   https://github.com/openscenegraph/VulkanSceneGraph

Please have a read through the README.md on the above repo as this
will explain a little about the project and where my focus will be for
the next three months work wise conducting an Exploration Phase to
scope out the technology and techniques that will go into project once
we start coding the scene graph itself.

This new project will co-exist with the OpenSceneGraph for years to
come.  I will remain as project lead of the OpenSceneGraph, I will fix
bugs, push out releases, generally chase everybody to test things and
also help out with general support here - continue to do what I've
done for nearly two decades.  Like OpenGL the OpenSceneGraph is still
relevant to many application developers and I expect it to remain a
corner stone of many application for years to come.  Both OpenGL and
OpenSceneGraph are very mature bits of software now so there isn't a
need to keep pushing hard on new features, so I planning for a stable
period when maintenance is increasingly the focus rather new new bells
and whistles.

You no doubt will have lots of questions, but at this point I can't
provide too many answers on the technical front as we are so early in
the project the technical details are yet to solidified - this is what
my next three months work will be all about.  I'll be learning
everything I can about Vulkan, working out how best to encapsulate
it's features them in a scene graph.

I also will be looking into what features of modern C++ can bring to
the table to make our lives as graphics developers easier and more
productive, C++11, 14 and 17 are all under consideration.

There also all the scene graph design elements that have been bubbling
around in my head for the last five years that I'd like to try out to
see what might be possible.

Once this Exploration Phase is complete I will have a more concrete
idea of what needs to be done next and will write a design document to
share with the community to give everyone a clearer idea of where we
are going next.  During this phase I will spend most of my time
working quietly away learning, testing, thinking, learning, testing,
thinking.  It's not a period that I am looking for lots of external
input on, the best software designs don't come from committees but
from a coherent and calm contemplation.  I guess I need to go find
myself a mediation rock on Skellig Michael :-)

If you are keen to help out VulkanSceneGraph then this is something
you can help out with right away, without needing me to complete any
design docs or to publish any code.  What all good software needs
during development and through into maintenance phase are unit tests
that test features and performance.  To this end I can created a new
SceneGraphTestBed repository to collect together in one place a set of
data and test programs that we can run to test out features and
performance of both the OpenSceneGraph and the VulkanSceneGraph once
it starts becoming usable.

   https://github.com/openscenegraph/SceneGraphTestBed

I don't have any data or test programs written at this point, so this
repo is an empty room waiting to be filled.  My thought is that we
would initially just create OpenSceneGraph based test data and
programs that test various features and performance of the
OpenSceneGraph.  If you have a particular tests that illustrate the
problems areas that you have in performance, or things that are
awkward to implement but shouldn't be then you could submit this as
unit tests that stress the OpenSceneGraph.

As the VulkanSceneGraph project evolves we tackle recreating these
OpenSceneGraph test programs using the new scene graph and the have an
ability to compare OpenGL/OpenSceneGraph with Vulkan/VulkanSceneGraph,
as well as have a set of unit tests that we can run prior to each
release of the OpenScenGraph or VulkanSceneGraph.

I don't have any specific plans of how to layout or manage the
SceneGraphTestBed, if you feel like it's something you'd like to pick
up the lead on then let us know - I'm already have plenty to juggle
myself so being able to let others manage sub projects is great way of
helping us all be as productive as we can be.

Thanks for your support and patience - cause I know we all want it yesterday!

Robert Osfield
Newly minted VulkanSceneGraph Project Lead :-)