R&D Engineer - Computer Graphics Developing a Blender Add-on for 3D Design Drawing

The Inria centre at Université Côte d'Azur includes 42 research teams and 9 support services. The centre's staff (about 500 people) is made up of scientists of different nationalities, engineers, technicians and administrative staff. The teams are mainly located on the university campuses of Sophia Antipolis and Nice as well as Montpellier, in close collaboration with research and higher education laboratories and establishments (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, INRAE, INSERM ...), but also with the regiona economic players.

With a presence in the fields of computational neuroscience and biology, data science and modeling, software engineering and certification, as well as collaborative robotics, the Inria Centre at Université Côte d'Azur  is a major player in terms of scientific excellence through its results and collaborations at both European and international levels.

Context and objective:

Designers draw extensively to externalize their ideas and communicate with others. However, drawings are currently not directly interpretable by computers. To test their ideas against physical reality, designers have to create 3D models suitable for simulation and 3D printing. But while drawing is visceral and quick, 3D modeling requires careful planning, precision and constraints to manipulate 3D shapes on screen.

The ambition of our research group is to bring the power of 3D engineering tools to the creative phase of design by allowing designers to create 3D models by drawing. To this end, we have developed a technology capable of automatically lifting design drawings to 3D (https://ns.inria.fr/d3/SymmetrySketch/). Our goal is now to demonstrate how this technology can streamline the Computer-Aided-Design workflow by interfacing it with the popular 3D modeling software Blender.

Location:

The project will be developed at Inria Sophia Antipolis, in the GraphDeco group (https://team.inria.fr/graphdeco/). The group does research on image synthesis and computer-aided design. Salary will follow the Inria grid and depends on experience.

We have already developed a first Blender add-on that allows users to draw using the Grease Pencil drawing interface  and to obtain a 3D reconstruction of their drawing thanks to our technology (https://gitlab.inria.fr/D3/blender-addon-symmetry-sketch). Our next objective is to compare this approach with emerging data-driven methods based on deep learning, and to combine our algorithm with these methods to achieve higher robustness and generality.

See more details here: https://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Adrien.Bousseau/erc/blender_pluginv2.pdf

The candidate will be in charge of designing and implementing the Blender add-on based on our technology, and of planning and conducting testing sessions with end users (professional designers and 3D modelers).

The candidate must have experience in Python programming and in developing 3D graphics applications. Knowledge of Blender, geometry processing and/or machine learning libraries is a plus, although those skills can be acquired as part of the mission.

• Subsidized meals
• Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
• Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)
• Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours
• Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
• Social, cultural and sports events and activities
• Access to vocational training
• Contribution to mutual insurance (subject to conditions)

From 2692 € gross monthly (according to degree and experience).