Libre Arts: GSoC2026: what to expect

From Libre Arts: link to the original post

Google has just published the list of students accepted into the Google Summer of Code 2026 program.

Some of the teams usually participating are off this year: Krita and Inkscape are temporarily out of mentors. Let’s take a look at the rest of them.

GIMP

Akascape will completely revamp the keyboard shortcuts configuration dialog and add support for importing and exporting presets, as well as support for multiple shortcuts per action.

blezecon will work on creating an automated infrastructure for validating, publishing, and distributing GIMP extensions.

v4vansh will update GIMP’s text engine to use HarfBuzz directly to extract font data, so that you have better control over formatting and access to various OpenType features.

Waris Maqbool will create PSD-compatible gegl:inner-glow and gegl:bevel operations to use in the PSD importer. They will also port the legacy Sharpen to make it a GEGL meta-operation.

Graphite

This vector/bitmap editor is still relatively unknown, and yet this isn’t the first time they are GSoC participants.

∅space will add currently missing support for SVG features like gradients, patterns, and a text-on-path. They will also create a fallback system so that currently unsupported (as in editing) features would be rasterized and imported as bitmaps.

Ayush Amawate will refactor the on-canvas gizmo code to remove duplicated code and add reusable gizmos (slider, dial, angle) for shape-drawing tools.

Bunnyy aims to improve the text functionality: add a lorem ipsum generator, formatting spans and typographical parameters, text on path, commands to enforce lower-/upper-/title-casing, hyphenation, font fallbacks, flows between text areas, ligatures and vertical typing toggles, and so on.

Timon Schelling will be adding a GPU-accelerated brush engine. The plan is to introduce non-destructive, resolution-independent stroke rendering with support for stylus pressure and tilt.

Yohei Yamasaki will refactor Graphite to create a more generalized graphic representation of paints (colors, gradients, patterns, etc.) as ordinary layers. The net outcome will be dedicated Gradient and Pattern nodes, as well as updated Fill and Stroke nodes.

Synfig

ahmedfathy0-0 will add a lattice-based free-form deformation layer to enable organic deformations like squash-and-stretch or facial movements.

Yukta will add per-character text animation support so that things like a typewriter effect are easy to achieve.

Digikam

Srirupa Datta will add an new interface to the database search engine and hook up a lightweight LLM to translate natural-language requests into the right combination of structured filters.

Blender

Bipin_ will be adding importing and exporting of OpenTimelineIO (.otio) files to VSE.

il4n will add handles to transitions such as crossfades in the VSE, so that users can move the transitions and change their length.

Criss-Ivana will port the following matrix & math utility nodes into the Compositor: Matrix SVD, Bit Math, Boolean Math, Integer Math, Compare, Float To Int, Hash Value, and Random Value.

Evan Luo will improve mesh smoothing by overcome fundamental limitations, such as volume shrinkage, no frequency selectivity, and selection boundary artifacts.

Henry Jiang will improve loop editing: add clone support for Edge Slide, implement edge loop adjustment via spline interpolation, and add loop cut curvature preservation.

Jerry Wei will improve the brush engine: add brush tip roundness for more brushes, customizable pressure curves for all pressure-sensitive parameters, customizable brush toggling and improved toggle display, etc.

Owen O’Malley will introduce the MaterialX standard node library into Blender’s shader editor as first-class native nodes.

Yogeshgouda_Patil will improve regression test coverage.

FreeCAD

Aymi will be working on bridging the 3rd-party Motion workbench with the FEM workbench to created animated multibody dynamics visualizations. It’s going to be a very challenging project, but she has great mentors on her side: long-time FEM contributor Mario Alexis and multi-body dynamics expert Aik-Siong Koh who is behind the assembly solver of FreeCAD and one of the two developers behind MbdFEM.

Morten Vajhøj will be overhauling the user experience in the TechDraw workbench. His focus will be on changing the way you annotate geometry: instead of selecting an object and then choosing the command you will now select what you want to do and then what to apply it to. This will bring TD in line with the rest of FreeCAD. Of course, applicable objects under the cursor will be highlighted, and inapplicable objects will be unavailable for the selected tool.

Nishendra Singh will attempt to revive and modernize the Robot workbench. This is going to be a colossal effort that, I’ve no doubt, will have to continue past the GSoC22026 deadline. This project’s scope is replacing CSV/DH file imports with URDF imports, exporting the joint & trajectory data, Orocos KDL kinematics library refresh (currently years behind the upstream), and updating the documentation.

Parag Debnath will integrate the buildingSMART Data Dictionary into the BIM workbench, so you can search and apply international classification standards from the cloud to selected IFC entities.

YashSuthar983 will create an initial version of the 3D parametric sketching workbench that could be later merged into the existing Sketcher workbench. For that, the student will extend the existing PlaneGCS solver to 3D by adding new primitives and spatial constraints.

Some of the students have been active in the project recently. Morten Vajhøj has 8 pull requests for the Measure tool merged. For YashSuthar983, 25 pull requests have already been merged (mainly around the core, Sketcher, and the Measure tool), another 5 PRs are open (for Sketcher, the Measure tool, and PartDesign).

BRL-CAD et al.

In the Google Summer of Code program, BRL-CAD is an umbrella organization comprised of OpenSCAD, IfcOpenShell, Bonsai BIM (formerly Blender BIM), and BRL-CAD itself.

AnshulPatil2005 will improve Manifold’s CI and benchmarking by adding missing determinism, sanitizer, and performance regression checks.

Bidyendu will add an optional AI assistant for OpenSCAD using either locally running models via Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible server, at user’s preference. The intention is to give users the ability to use the benefits of AI without compromising privacy.

RaghavSharma0125 will add an MCP server to BRL-CAD, so you can interact with the program through any external MCP client.

Kanchan Borole will improve the Geometry Verification and Validation (V&V) user interface in Arbalest, the Qt-based UI for BRL-CAD.

MYoder will enhance Bonsai BIM (formerly Blender BIM) with tools for BIM-type modeling of roadways using the IFC 4.3 schema. TThe scope of the project is vertical alignments (horizontal already implemented), cross-section profiles, and corridor generation.

Pitivi

The video editor has been participating at GSoC for years through the GNOME Foundation org. This year, Michael Calabrese will be rewriting the timeline ruler in GTK4/Rust to make it more robust.

Kdenlive

Yash Bavadiya will improve the UI for three parts of the program: create a tabbed per-channel widget for the Curves effect, implement a gradient editor with arbitrary draggable color stops, and add Bezier handle support on RemapView connector lines with easing presets for the Time Remapping panel.

Mixxx

Ayush Sah will rebuild the LateNight skin as a 100% native QML interface. This is supposed to reduce the CPU overhead and bring cleaner architecture.

Priyanshuwu will add PipeWire support so that audio can be freely routed. They will also attempt to achieve ALSA-comparable latency with the new audio backend.

GRAME

GRAME is not a very well-known org, but if you are into audio, you may have heard of Faust, a functional programming language for sound synthesis and audio processing. There are two very cool GSoC projects this year.

Blake North will be integrating Faust into Bespoke Synth. Essentially, you will be able to edit and run Faust programs in real-time.

Another student, Mithaniel V., will integrate Faust into the Godot game engine. There will be two deliverables: a Faust Godot extension and a command line tool to compile Faust programs into Godot native language statically.

More projects

I don’t usually cover VLC and FFmpeg, but they do have students this year as well.

If you are interested in astronomy and space exploration, check our OpenAstronomy and LibreCube projects.