[Development] Future of QtOpenCL

[Sebastian Lehmann]

Hi Liang,

thanks for being proactive. If you could help modularizing it, this  
would actually be very helpful, as I'm new to Qt contribution. I am  
already busy getting started with gerrit, jira and stuff.

I think we should start with a fresh reimplementation of these two  
modules in a new repo:

* QtOpenCL
* QtOpenCLGL

This is how it was called in the old repo. We should copy over the  
code piece by piece, as I think we sould take the chance to make  
radical changes like deriving classes from QObjects (where it makes  
sense), constness, class names, etc. What do you think?

Where is the design of a new (qt lab) module typically discussed? IRC  
#qt-lab or in this mailing list?

What design tools do you use typically? Do you design UML diagrams  
very precise before starting to write code? Any favorite tools /  
formats?

Regards,

Sebastian



Quoting Qi Liang <Liang.Qi at digia.com>:

> +1
>
> The old repo for it:
> http://qt.gitorious.org/qt-labs/opencl
>
> I could help to modularize it for Qt 5 if nobody wants to try it. At  
>  least I could review the modularize work.
>
> Regards,
> Liang
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Sebastian Lehmann
> Sent: Saturday, June 29, 2013 7:00 PM
> To: development at qt-project.org
> Subject: [Development] Future of QtOpenCL
>
> Hello Qt developers,
>
> I'm sadly noting that the QtOpenCL project [1] is dead since end 2010,
> yet it's still
> usable. I want to bring this module back to life. Currently, the
> module has a couple of
> issues such as const-correctness and missing support for Qt5.
>
> I see two options with that: Either rewriting the whole module with a
> new design, or
> improving the existing code base.
>
> Also, I'd love to have some basic, generic and reusable algorithms
> implemented in OpenCL
> and available with an interface similar to QtConcurrent. This could be
> in a separate
> module. I have some nice ideas for the design of this.
>
> Some people say that there's no big advantage in having a QtOpenCL
> module, as everything
> can also be done with CL library function calls. But both the
> advantage of RAII as well
> as having a Qt'ish interface are a huge help when writing applications
> with a lot of
> GPGPU computations, as the raw CL functions are way too painful to
> write (and read).
>
> How's your opinion about bringing QtOpenCL back to life (especially in
> Qt5)? Any concrete
> ideas or suggestions?
>
> Anyone out there who wants to help? How is the typical "workflow" for
> new modules in Qt5?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Leemes
>
>
> PS: I already read through the Qt Contribution Guidelines.
>
> PPS: I'm currently writing an OpenCL powered application with the
> "old" QtOpenCL module
> within the context of a GPGPU computing course I'm taking. I have
> quite a good knowledge
> of GPGPU computing as well as the old QtOpenCL module and its flaws.
> But I think this
> won't be enough to rewrite a whole new Qt5 module from scratch. So I
> think this won't
> work unless some people from the community can be found willing to help.
>
>
>   [1]: http://doc.qt.digia.com/opencl-snapshot/
>