Software developed by Edinburgh researchers is to be included in a prestigious mentoring programme.
It will form part of the Google Summer of Code (GSoC), an international initiative in which student coders spend their summer break working with organisations developing open source software.
Joint team
The software, used primarily for simulating and modelling Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), is being developed by a team from Northumbria University and the University of Edinburgh.
Students from the University of Edinburgh and the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in India have been selected to work on the programme this summer.
They will seek to bring new features to the software, known as gprMax.
Its broad modelling capability supports a range of applications.
These could include enabling the discovery of Egyptian tombs, mapping the subsurface of cities, investigating glaciers in the Antarctic, antipersonnel landmine detection, or imaging tumours in the human body.
Improved product
Additional features would transform and enhance its accuracy and performance, allowing it to be used for more applications and new areas of electromagnetic imaging.
Code developed under the programme will be made available afterwards as part of gprMax's open source licence.
Anyone can download and use the gprMax software.
It is downloaded by about 300 people each month, according to recent figures.
Its development has been supported by Google Fiber in the US, the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, and the Canadian GPR firm Sensors & Software.
The Google Summer of Code is a fantastic opportunity for students from around the world to contribute their skills, and learn about developing open source code in real software projects.
The foundations of gprMax were set 20 years ago in Edinburgh after recognising that, as a research community, we need powerful, openly available tools to develop novel practices and understanding in GPR technologies. Current recognition rewards this commitment to develop tools for repeatable GPR research, supported by a company of world-wide stature and a strong supporter of open source software.
