Tistur - GSoC 2008

So, this is my new website. It will serve to test and document my Google Summer of Code 2008 project - which is a Drupal module for manipulating images. This site will hold documentation for both users and developers of the module, as well as my thoughts, frustrations and random musings while working on it.

Please feel free to sign up for an account to be test out my module.

A brief extract from my application to Google:

I've written a module, Image Overlay, to allow users to "draw" shapes on images with JQuery UI & canvas, and save the result as an image node. Shapes are draggable and resizable. I've kind of stalled at this point, and could use some help, so I am applying as a student, with the hope that I will be able to get some guidance on this project, and Drupal will gain an awesome (and unique) module.

I think this module could provide very useful tool to many drupal sites, including social sites (photos), techinical sites (notes & schematics), educational sites (maps, historical battleplans), and many others I haven't yet thought of. A friend of mine who is studying set and lighting design for theater thought up three or four other uses right off the bat when I explained my plans to him.

I have been unable to find this functionality anywhere in the open source world (and hardly anywhere outside of it.) Ezra Gildesgame summed it up well in his comments at soc-2008: "[T]he clear value that this provides [...] is that multiple people can easily collaborate on a single image[.] [...] [T]his could be help provide a very interesting type of wiki. I'm not aware of other visual wiki's or online collaborative image editing systems." As mentioned in my abstract, there could be many uses for such a system.

Deliverables:
There is already a module (that I wrote.) At the end of the summer, this module (at the least): will be updated to work with Drupal 6, will have an improved interface, more shapes (including images defined by an admin), text capability, and the ability to edit already made "overlays." Shapes will be moveable on the z-axis, and deletable. A list of all overlays on a particular image will be available for view. Fine-grained permissions will allow the admin to choose who may add overlays, edit overlays, etc.

-Tistur