Google Summer of Code/2018/Project Ideas

This page lists a number of ideas for potential Google Summer of Code 2018 projects. Also check existing bugs for more problems to solve.

This page's primary purpose is to help to give potential applicants ideas that they can build on to turn into applications for the program. Members of the community are encouraged to identify ideas for projects here, and whether they would be willing to act as a mentor for a student attempting the project.

Students can base their application on one of these ideas, or on an idea of their own if they prefer.

Processes

If you are thinking of applying for GSoC, please see our Google Summer of Code/Processes page which describes the way that we manage GSoC within Qt, so you know what we expect of students and Mentors.

Project Ideas

This is the list of projects. Please add projects using the GSoC idea template.

General

Port Qt to IncludeOS

Suggested By Jesús Fernández Summary Create a port of Qt to IncludeOS Skills Required C++ Difficulty Hard Possible Mentors Jesús Fernández Notes IncludeOS allows you to run your application in the cloud without an operating system. IncludeOS adds operating system functionality to your application allowing you to create performant, secure and resource efficient virtual machines. IncludeOS applications boot in tens of milliseconds and require only a few megabytes of disk and memory. Comments

Qt Location

QtLocation is Qt's own mapping module. It has positioning and location modules for integrating maps into applications. For more information see http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtlocation-index.html.

OpenGL-based Map Items

Suggested By Paangele Summary Implement the rendering of geometric map items (circles, rectangles, polygons, polyline) in GLSL Skills Required C++, OpenGL Difficulty Medium Possible Mentors Paangele Notes Comments Geometric map items in QtLocation currently require considerable preprocessing, and even projection to screen is performed in CPU. Applying GPU-acceleration to the items rendering stack can be performed at multiple stages.

MapPolygons with holes and GeoJSON interoperability

Suggested By Paangele Summary Support MapPolygons with holes Skills Required C++, 3D Graphics Difficulty Medium Possible Mentors Paangele Notes Comments QtLocation's MapPolygon currently does not support polygons containing holes. Adding this support would allow a 1:1 feature matching with GeoJSON geometries. The scope of this project is therefore to implement the necessary enabler and the GeoJSON conversion API to produce GeoJSON from Map Items and vice versa, possibly allowing to feed GeoJSON to a MapItemView, and populate the map in that way.

3D Map Item

Suggested By Paangele Summary Add a Map Item to render 3D models Skills Required C++, 3D Graphics/OpenGL Difficulty Medium Possible Mentors Paangele Notes Comments To realize this project, a QtLite feature and a dependency on assimp could be added.

Indoor Maps support

Suggested By Paangele Summary Support indoor maps both from API and implementation perspective Skills Required C++ Difficulty Medium Possible Mentors Paangele Notes Comments QtLocation currently offers no support for indoor maps. This project involves defining new tech preview API to deal with indoor maps, and the necessary adaptation to the renderer(s) to display the maps.

Qt Creator

Qt Creator is a powerful IDE for C/C++ development with and without Qt.

Language Server

Suggested By TobiasHunger Summary Visual Studio Code introduced support for Language Servers. These are stand-alone programs that implement a interface for IDEs to interact with, so that features like Go to Definition can be implemented there. It would be great if these language servers could also be used by Qt Creator. Skills Required C++ and Qt development skills Difficulty medium Possible Mentors Qt Creator Team Notes https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/extensibility/language-server-protocol Comments

Meson Support

Suggested By TobiasHunger Summary Meson is a build system that has become popular with open source projects in the last couple of years. Qt Creator should be able to open meson projects natively. Skills Required C++/Qt and Python Difficulty medium Possible Mentors TobiasHunger Notes http://mesonbuild.com/ has details on meson. This will probably involve some work in meson to enable a fast IDE integration. Comments

Bazel Support

Suggested By TobiasHunger Summary Bazel is a fast build system by Google. Qt Creator should support projects using this build system natively. Skills Required C++/Qt Difficulty medium Possible Mentors TobiasHunger Notes https://bazel.build/ has details on bazel. Comments

Qt Wayland platform plugin

Implement support for various protocol extensions

Suggested By Johan Helsing Summary Some of these are easily implemented, other require more work. Pick as many as you think you can manage: xdg-shell: Recently released as stable. We already have support for xdg-shell unstable v6. Use this as a basis for supporting the stable version. server-decoration: Several compositors already implement the KDE protocol for switching off client side decorations. Very useful for tiling window managers. Implement support for it directly in Qt. https://github.com/KDE/kwayland/blob/master/src/client/protocols/server-decoration.xml idle-inhibit: Apps like movie players and similar that want to prevent screen savers and screenlockers can do it through this protocol. Implement it on Wayland and add Qt APIs so this can be implemented on other platforms as well. Other protocols in https://cgit.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/tree/unstable Skills Required C++/Qt Difficulty medium Possible Mentors Johan Helsing Notes Comments

Qt Quick

The Qt Quick module is the standard library for writing QML applications. While the Qt QML module provides the QML engine and language infrastructure, the Qt Quick module provides all the basic types necessary for creating user interfaces with QML.

QML photosphere/360 video viewer

Suggested By Paangele Summary Create a new QML element (or two separate ones) to display and interact with 360 photos and videos Skills Required C++, OpenGL Difficulty Medium Possible Mentors Paangele Notes This project is intended to fully support 360 photos and videos in QML. This includes reading metadata, support for partial photospheres, blitting frame crops to zoom, etc. A starting point can be https://github.com/paoletto/qphotosphere Comments

Qt Quick Controls 2 Silica Style

Suggested By Alexey Andreyev Summary Implement Sailfish OS Silica Controls as Qt Quick Controls 2 Style Skills Required QML/JS, C++, OpenGL Difficulty Medium Possible Mentors None yet Notes Sailfish Silica controls is based on Qt Quick not Qt Quick Controls (neither first not second). The idea is no rewrite them with QQC2 to provide efficiency of C++ for compex code and simplify cross-platform development for Sailfish OS. Blog note describing problem: http://aa13q.ru/qqc2-silica-style-en/ Comments

Qt Android Extras

Remotely Display Qt Applications on Google Chromecast

Suggested By Ryan Chu Summary Integrate "Google Remote Display" API into Qt framework. https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/remote Skills Required C++, Android SDK/NDK Difficulty Medium Possible Mentors Ryan Chu Notes The remote display on the Chromecast (receiver) can present information that is entirely different than the information presented in the display on the Qt device (sender device). Comments Ideally, Qt examples can be displayed on the big screen connected with Chromecast without extra effort. This project is also useful for headless devices to report internal content.

Qt PDF

PDF support in Qt

Suggested By Summary improve the PDF support in Qt, http://code.qt.io/cgit/qt-labs/qtpdf.git http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/01/30/new-qtpdf-qtlabs-module/ Skills Required C++ Difficulty Medium Possible Mentors Shawn Rutledge Notes Comments

Qt 3D

Support for Virtual Reality APIs

Suggested By Daniel Bulla Summary There is a proof of concept for adding VR support to Qt3D. This needs a lot of love to support proper input, lower latency and more functionality. Skills Required C++, QML, Qt3D Difficulty Hard Possible Mentors None yet Notes Proof of Concept: https://github.com/dabulla/qt3d-vr-example. A lot of conceptual work has been done and there is support for multiple popular VR APIs. The task consists of implementation and a concept to interface VR input devices and 3D Models of OpenVR (and optionally Oculus VR directly). The challenge for VR support in Qt3D is to achieve great performance/low latency while providing an easy-to-use (QML-) interface. I already used the current implementation in a project and I'm confident that this implementation could add great value to Qt3D. On the other hand side parts of the working prototype use function calls from QML and Timers. It would be the student's job to create a concept with proper property bindings for these cases. The vendors VR APIs are mostly C and need wrapping in harmony with Qt Coding Style. Comments