[gnome-love] GSoC 2010 Proposal (fast image viewer)

[Aleksey Kunitskiy <alexey alexey-kv info>]

Hi,

I'm student who is interested in implementing an OpenGL-accelerated
image viewer/organizer using C++/gtkmm/gtkglextmm for GNOME project.
I know there is a couple of projects such as eog[1], gThumb[2] and
gliv[3] that implement viewer[1], viewer+organizer[2] and
OpenGL accelerated viewer-only[3], but mine is kinda of coupling
those features listed above in one app. My application will be:

* written in C++;
* easy to read and maintain ( I hope (= );
* accelerated with OpenGL image drawing. Important things such as
  viewing/zooming/etc will be very fast on modern not as fast computers
  with OpenGL-compatible video card. From listed above there is only
  [3] that is OpenGL accelerated. But it lacks basic organizing
  features (tags, comments, etc), has segfaults, has very complicated
  code IMHO;
* with support of organizing images. Images will have tags, comments
  and of course there will be search feature. Only [2] have
  organizing features;
* supporting of viewing all possible formats that gdk pixbuf supports
  and will support RAW camera images with help of libraw[4] library.
  Libraw is actively maintained library, that supports all cameras that
  dcraw does. AFAIK only gThumb can display RAW camera images, but even
  not all. It is slow and lacks configuration for decoding RAW images;
* keyboard driven like gliv[3]. I like gliv's simple key bindings that
  in combination with OpenGL acceleration allows very fast and
  comfortable image browsing;
* written with code parallelization in mind, to run even faster on
  SMP-compatible computers;
* with possibility of OpenGL effects in future. gliv has it, but it
  slows down viewing because keyboard events wait for effect to be done;

I'm self motivated implementing it because my hobby is photography(you
can find me on flickr[5] as marten_kv). I'm using showfoto from digikam
project, but I need something lighter, faster and something gtk-based
because I don't use KDE and prefer gtk apps. I tried to fix gliv for my
needs but recently I've got an idea to write something new with
features listed above.

P.S. short information about me: my name is Aleksey Kunitskiy. I live
in Odessa, Ukraine. I'm studying in Odessa National University and
hope to get M.Sc. degree this year =)

P.P.S. I know there is F-Spot. But personally I don't know C# as good
as C++ and it does not fit in my requirements.

Feel free to judge me. I'll be glad to hear your thoughts about it. I
hope GNOME community enjoy it.

1. http://projects.gnome.org/eog/
2. http://live.gnome.org/gthumb
3. http://guichaz.free.fr/gliv/
4. http://www.libraw.org/

5. http://www.fluidr.com/photos/39718472@N02

-- 
best regards,
Aleksey Kunitskiy