~/cropforge — about.md

creator

Built by one researcher,
for all researchers.

CropForge was created by Saswat Sundar Rath, a student researcher at ICAR-IARI Jharkhand, as an answer to a recurring problem — existing crop simulation tools were either closed-source, configuration-heavy, or too opaque to extend meaningfully.

The goal: a runtime that treats simulation as code, not configuration. Where every model, every parameter, and every assumption is explicit and inspectable. Where extending the physics means writing a Python class, not editing XML.

CropForge began as a concept — what if we could see the farm truly, in real time, on any device, with full freedom? A degree of visualisation once thought possible only on supercomputers. That game-like ambition became the stepping stone. Over successive releases it grew from a simple time-stepped prototype into a full-stack simulation runtime with opt-in physics, a terrain engine, sediment dynamics, WebGL visualisation, and first-class GLTF export.

// MIT licensed and built in the open. Contributions, critique, and collaboration are welcome.

How it grew.

project_history.md v0.1 → v1.0
v1.0.0  — Community Release
+  Weed competition, planting density, yield summary
+  CITATION.cff, Zenodo archival, JOSS-ready
+  Community governance, issue templates
 
v0.9.x  — Visual Architecture
+  PBR rendering, morph targets, machinery animation
+  Terrain-aware GLB export; stress/disease visualisation
 
v0.8.0  — Terrain Arc
+  Sediment dynamics, mass conservation, D8 hydrology
+  LOD 3D renderer at 60 fps on 500×500 fields
+  TiedRidges, VegetativeFilterStrip, ContourBund
 
v0.6–0.7  — Physics Arc
+  FAO-56 ET₀, Beer-Lambert radiation, RUSLE erosion
+  Terrain engine (procedural, CSV, GeoTIFF)
+  D8 hydrology coupling, 3D dashboard modal
 
v0.1–0.5  — Core Runtime
+  Phase-ordered @step decorator, time-stepped simulation
+  Plugin architecture: StandardWheat, StandardMaize
+  Parquet logging, spatial state management