Hi everyone,
My name is Devashish Lal (also go by CodeBlaze) and I’ll be working on File Import Nodes for Geometry Nodes this summer. I am currently pursuing my masters and my research is focused on 3D Computer Vision, Neural Field Rendering and Gaussian Splatting. I have been using blender on and off since Blender 2.6 and for me it’s a relaxing hobby. Love hard surface and environmental design. When geometry nodes came out it enabled me as a programmer to create fun things and I see it’s potential use in my field of research also but that requires importing point cloud data. When I saw this project on the proposal page I knew I had to try and submit a proposal.
I started with exploring the code base around existing bf_io_* importer projects and documented what changes would be required to integrate them with Geometry Nodes
Next I tried doing a proof of concept with a simple STL file import node, changes can be found here. with this I had enough information to formulate my proposal, at least for simple 3D data formats like OBJ and STL.
For CSV import, since there is no existing importer project a new bf_io_csv project would need to be created and after a discussion with @jacqueslucke , I formalised how CSV data would be handled in Geometry Node. you can read upon that in my finale proposal here
I aim to implement file import nodes for 3D data formats (OBJ, STL, etc), CSV and Point Clouds (PLY) over the coming summer and maybe after I am done with GSoC I’ll try to create a file import node along with a geometry node system for gaussian splatting and use it in my research work.
Looking forward to sharing these features with everyone.