Hello World!

Dear readers of my blog.

This year I'm happy to be a participant of Google Summer of Code 2016 program and work together with my mentor Jasem Mutlaq on such an exciting project like Lite version of one of the KDE's applications KStars (you can find more about KStars here).

What is KStars Lite?

As the title suggests it is a lite version for mobile/tablets, slow machines like budget laptops, netbooks, single-board computers like Raspberry Pi, etc. One of the main differences between desktop and lite versions is that the graphics of the latter is based on QML/QtQuick. KStars Lite is built bearing in mind the differences between mouse/touch interfaces and the graphical frontend will be designed according to touch interfaces of mobile platforms.

 

What will be done?

The first goal of this project is to build a QML/QtQuick version of SkyMap, the "heart" of the KStars. . This includes displaying of almost all sky objects like planets, stars, asteroids, etc (you can find a detailed list of sky objects in my proposal in the end of this post). It can be done using several approaches and my first task is to choose the best one to provide fluent and smooth experience to the end user.

User will be able to interact with the SkyMap by panning with touch screen, using gestures like "pinch to zoom" and tap on the objects. Everything from this list will be also available for use with mouse.
Other features include Search, Simulation Time, Location retrieval and Timekeeping, Projection Systems and Color Schemes.
To provide the best experience the logic behind loading the sky objects from catalogs will be changed (you can read details in my proposal).

Why KStars? 

I become interested in Astronomy last year after reading a book about the space exploration. Right now I'm subscribed to the one of the astronomy magazines and with each its issue I'm getting a part of the telescope so my first newbie telescope is on my way :)

KStars Lite is also a great opportunity to strength my skills in QML/QtQuick. I like the declarative way of designing the interfaces and see KStars Lite as a probable motivation to move the whole project to QML/QtQuick.

 

About me

My name is Artem Fedoskin and I come from Kazakhstan. I'm a first-year master student majoring in Computer Science at South Kazakhstan State University. Apart from programming I love music (different genres from rock and metal to synthpop), reading sci-fi and fantasy books and comics. Especially I like Star Wars universe :)

You can find my proposal for KStars Lite here