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EDGE v2.3 Release Notes

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On this page… (hide)

  1. 1. Patches
  2. 2. Upgrading (please read)
  3. 3. Summary of Changes
    1. 3.1 New mobile pages for Web Commanding Server (WCS)
    2. 3.2 Support for DCOMM client auto-reconnect
    3. 3.3 Ability to scale RGB channels on a viewport
    4. 3.4 New plugin to detect if a node is visible from a viewport
    5. 3.5 Live streaming video to a web browser
    6. 3.6 New Greek characters available for overlays
    7. 3.7 New camera data overlay
    8. 3.8 Trick 13 support
    9. 3.9 Redesigned “blank” graphics load
    10. 3.10 New “DOUG manager beacon” and “DOUG manager spy” utilities added
  4. 4. Installation
    1. 4.1 Linux and Mac
    2. 4.2 Windows
    3. 4.3 To integrate into your sim:
  5. 5. Fixes and Enhancements
  6. 6. Known Issues

NOTE: These are the release notes for EDGE version 2.3. You can find the release notes for other versions here.

1.  Patches

2.  Upgrading (please read)

While EDGE v2.3 is considered a fairly significant release in terms of new features and compatibility issues, most projects should be able to use their 2.2 userdata directories without much interruption. Follow the install instructions in this document and use the "USERDATA" environment variable to point to your userdata directory before starting EDGE (exactly as was done in previous versions). For windows users, the USERDATA directory is usually pointed to in the .bat file used to startup EDGE. Items that have changed you will want to be aware of:

  • Default port for DCOMM now 8200

    • The previous default port for the DCOMM manager/server was 8000, but this is a somewhat common port to use with other servers. As of EDGE v2.3, the new default is 8200. Of course, if you are using the normal multicast discovery, this all gets detected automatically and requires no change on your part. More details are in issue Issues.00458.

  • planet2.cfg split up

    • There are now individual files for each planet2 body, rather than one file for all planets. This makes it easier for a user to override settings for one body and leave the others unaffected, especially during an upgrade. It is also to load individual reconfigs for each body. If you were customizing relating to planet2 or the earth/moon, you will want to pay special attention to this change and update your user.cfg accordingly. Instead of customizing the entire planet2.cfg file, you will want to override the individual pieces you need to change. Details are in issue Issues.00182.

  • New mechanism to switch between multicast discovery and direct comm

    • DCOMM can either detect the manager it wants to connect to on the network using multicast, or, the user can manually specify which IP address and port to connect to for the DCOMM manager / server. Switching between these methods is now easier by using some variables in the DEFINES block of your user.cfg. For full details see issue Issues.00450.

3.  Summary of Changes

We are excited to release EDGE v2.3. Changes are many. See the full list in the "Fixes and Enhancements" below. Some of the most notable changes are:


The main menu for the mobile WCS interface

3.1  New mobile pages for Web Commanding Server (WCS)

The web commanding server has been expanded to serve up mobile web pages at the URL "/mobile". This provide a nice touch compatible interface to the various menus as well as data that updates live without needing to refresh the pages. The "Display" page can be used to see a live stream of the video as well as control camera assignments and viewports. There are also pages for reconfigs and toggles, as well as a "Peers" page which is a live updating list of the other detected instances of EDGE on the network. For more details, see issue Issues.00393.

3.2  Support for DCOMM client auto-reconnect

You could always restart DOUG clients at any time to reconnect to a manager. But previously, if the manager went down, all DOUG clients would have to be restarted after restarting the manager so they could reconnect to the new process. With this new feature, the clients will detect the loss of connection to the manager, unload DCOMM, then begin polling for a new manager to be present on the network. Once a manager is detected, the DCOMM plugin is reloaded to connect to the new manager. For more details, see issue Issues.00357.

3.3  Ability to scale RGB channels on a viewport

The red, green, and blue output colors of a viewport can now be scaled independently. See issue Issues.00413 for more details.

3.4  New plugin to detect if a node is visible from a viewport

Some folks may find it useful to have a way to tell if a particular node is within the view of a specific viewport. This new plugin allows that. You can even provide a radius around the center of the node and detect when any part of that radius is within a view, or when all of that radius is within a view. Issue Issues.00440 has more details.


MJPEG video streaming to a web browser from the WCS

3.5  Live streaming video to a web browser

EDGE clients can now stream live video to any web browser without any configuration! The web commanding server has been upgraded to have "/image" and "/video" URLs where the browser can get a JPEG or MJPEG respectively. Most browsers have built in MJPEG support, including mobile browsers like the iPad! For more details, see issue Issues.00423.

3.6  New Greek characters available for overlays

In engineering applications, often time Greek symbols are useful (such as delta when discussing delta-V). This upgrade allows the use of Greek symbols in EDGE overlays. See issue Issues.00428 for more details.

3.7  New camera data overlay

Sometimes it useful to have a simple overlay that can show you the camera name you are currently using, or the pan/tilt values of the camera. This upgrade adds in this generic overlay and makes it available in the right-click menu. You can also use DEFINES in your user.cfg to automatically default them on or off as well as change the appearance. For more details, see issue Issues.00431.

3.8  Trick 13 support

Support for Trick 13 simulations has been added to the simdata plugin. This should allow users to hook up to live Trick 13 simulations as well as load recorded data. As Trick 13 is only beginning to be used, there has been limited testing so please let us know if you run into any issues.


The new "blank" graphics load in EDGE v2.3

3.9  Redesigned "blank" graphics load

The previous "blank" graphics load was truly blank. Just a black screen to be exact. This was very useful for folks that just needed to load a simple model to look at, or prototype something, or just start a new scene from scratch. Sometimes, when experimenting with other items, such as simulation data, something is needed in the scene to drive. So the "blank" scene has been upgraded to not be entirely blank. It now has 3 colored spheres, as well as a checkered floor so that shadows can be seen. This gives a better infrastructure for folks that need just a little bit more in their configuration to prototype or demonstrate things in graphics. Of course, the spheres and floor can be easily turned off using the "Toggles" menu. See issue Issues.00432 for more details.

3.10  New "DOUG manager beacon" and "DOUG manager spy" utilities added

These two useful utilities have been added under the "src.dist/scripts" directory in the EDGE distribution.

The DOUG manager beacon utility provides a way to launch a tiny process which advertises a DOUG manager the same way a real DOUG manager normally would. The difference is that the user can specify what goes in the announcement right on the command line. This is very useful when you have a manager waiting at a specific address but the multicast messages from the manager are not available on the network. For example, if you have an SSH tunnel connection to a manager, the IP connectivity works fine, but the multicast messages will not make it across. This utility would let you advertise the manager on its behalf to point clients to the tunnel.

The DOUG manager spy utility is almost the opposite of the beacon. While the beacon sends multicast messages, the spy utility just listens for multicast messages and prints them out. This is mainly useful for debugging issues on why a client is not detecting a manager on the network.

For both the beacon and the spy utility, see issue Issues.00457 for more details.

4.  Installation

To install:

4.1  Linux and Mac

  1. Unzip the "EDGE_v2.3.zip" file.
  2. Change into the EDGE_v2.3 directory and run "./run_graphics"
  3. Install any patches listed in the Patches section at the top of this document
  4. Optionally, run "./run_benchmarks" to get a performance assessment and mail in the results

That's it. As mentioned above, Linux and Mac users can also type "./run_benchmarks" to get a performance assessment of your machine. Email in your benchmark results to help us measure the effects of different drivers, kernel versions, etc., or just to brag about your fancy new hardware.

NOTE: Obviously the support libraries that are installed can vary widely from machine to machine. EDGE is 32 bit process, but it runs fine on 64 bit machines. The only requirement is that the 32 bit system libraries it needs are available. We haven't run into any situations where any missing 32 bit libraries aren't easily installable with yum or apt-get in most linux distributions. For example, some common packages you may need to install are (package names taken from red-hat based flavor - you may have adjust for debian or others):

  • glibc.i686
  • avahi-libs.i686 (sometimes called avahi-devel.i386)
  • mesa-libglu.i686 (sometimes called mesa-libGLU.i386)
  • libXmu.i686 (sometimes called libXmu.i386)
  • libXScrnSaver.i686 (sometimes called libXScrnSaver.i386)
  • libXft.i686 (sometimes called libXft.i386)
  • libjpeg.i686 (sometimes called libjpeg.i386)
  • glx-utils.i686
  • mesa-libGL-devel.i686
  • mesa-libGLU-devel.i686

Note the .i686 suffix to force it to install the 32 bit version. Also note that some folks have much better success by making sure you do a full "yum update" before trying to install these libraries. If EDGE gives you an error about a missing library, you can find what package provides them using yum commands such as "yum whatprovides libXss.so.1" and installing the 32 bit version. For Centos 5, I used the following yum line:

yum install avahi-devel.i386 mesa-libGLU.i386 libXmu.i386 libXScrnSaver.i386 libXft.i386 libjpeg.i386

For Scientific Linux 6, these became .i686, so I used the following yum line:

yum install avahi-devel.i686 mesa-libGLU.i686 libXmu.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 libXft.i686 libjpeg.i686 freetype-devel.i686 cairo.i686 libstdc++.i686

On Scientific Linux 6, I also have to make the following symbolic links in order to compile code in src.dist/plugins folder —Zuqunli April 21, 2016, at 1:55 PM

cd /usr/lib
sudo ln -s freetype.so.6.3.22 freetype.so
sudo ln -s libcairo.so.2.10800.8 libcairo.so
sudo ln -s libstdc++.so.6.0.13 libstdc++.so

To compile gdal_mapplugin install following additional package from yum: —Zuqunli April 21, 2016, at 1:55 PM

yum install zlib.i686 libcurl.i686

I also have to make the following symbolic links in order to compile code in gdal_mapplugins folder

cd /usr/lib
sudo ln -s libz.so.1.2.3 libz.so
sudo ln -s libcurl.so.4.1.1 libcurl.so

For Centos 7, some folks have used the following:

yum install avahi-devel.i686 mesa-libGLU.i686 libXmu.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 libXft.i686 libjpeg-turbo.i686 libgudev1.i686

For Ubuntu 14.04, some folks have used the following:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libglu1-mesa:i386 libxmu6:i386 libxss1:i386 libxft2:i386

—frankie March 28, 2012, at 11:05 AM

For Ubuntu 16.04 64 bit, I have used:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libglu1-mesa:i386 
sudo apt-get install libxmu6:i386 libxss1:i386 libxft2:i386 tcsh libx11-dev:i386 libc6-dev-i386 
sudo apt-get install mesa-common-dev:i386 libglu1-mesa-dev:i386 g++-multilib libxt-dev:i386

—frankie December 21, 2016, at 09:49 AM

4.2  Windows

Eventually we want to have a nice installer for Windows. For now, do the following:

  1. Unzip the "EDGE_v2.3.zip" file.
  2. Double click "run_graphics.bat" to start EDGE.

4.3  To integrate into your sim:

  • For simple desktop integration with a TRICK simulation, try using the simdata plugin found under the "Options" menu. You can read more about this on the Graphics.DspSimdataNew page. This supports both live sims and post-sim visualization of recorded data.
  • If you want to integrate a Trick 07.X simulation using the DCOMM library, see the Orbital sim integration page.

5.  Fixes and Enhancements

  • 00126 - add comment in planet2.cfg for atmosphere2 arguments
  • 00182 - Separate planet2.cfg
  • 00251 - EDGE freezes after sim stop
  • 00285 - simdata interacts with RCS when commanding liveconnect
  • 00353 - Incorrect rendering of earth with shadows
  • 00357 - support for reconnecting to a manager after a loss of connection
  • 00358 - EDGE does not honor the VSYNC setting using ATI under Linux
  • 00360 - add switch to force display context or load selection dialog
  • 00362 - PLANET2_SUN and a planet being collocated can screw up lighting
  • 00363 - ISS_LVLH_ATT node missing
  • 00364 - add pdict routine for pretty printing of tcl dictionaries
  • 00365 - edge manager not sourcing plume init or drive routines
  • 00368 - lightning callbacks sometimes execute before init routines run
  • 00371 - make "object data not supported" message from acloader print only once
  • 00372 - When using the scale on load option it breaks the pick model function
  • 00373 - When ambient occlusion is enabled the stars change brightness
  • 00374 - Request to add ability to pass arguments to a plugin from Tcl when using doug.load_plugin
  • 00375 - report reason if web commanding server fails init
  • 00376 - web commanding server (WCS) fails to init on windows
  • 00377 - add feature that allows WCS callbacks to keep socket open
  • 00378 - simdata manual connection to TRICK 10 sims not working
  • 00380 - Problem with dsp_cctv plugin when it is included in main DOUG and DISPLAY block when using -display
  • 00381 - Sometimes DOUG can segfault if an attempt to render the scene is done before initializtion
  • 00383 - Simdata can't connect on a standalone machine
  • 00385 - Simdata misreads Trick 10 trk files
  • 00386 - WCS sometimes not returning entire text file
  • 00388 - change joystick2_demo.tcl to use uplevel rather than eval
  • 00389 - Unable to set the rotation sequence of a node from tcl/tk
  • 00390 - perl remote commanding client example can hang
  • 00391 - include tclsh as part of EDGE release
  • 00392 - add ability to execute reconfigs and toggles from WCS pages
  • 00393 - make WCS pages mobile browser compatible
  • 00394 - add texloader command to return screen image in memory rather than a file
  • 00395 - dcomm warnings should probably be status
  • 00397 - Sometimes a canvas with "-layer foreground" does not render in the foreground.
  • 00398 - add "read only" mode for DCOMM
  • 00399 - Simdata oneshot/send text capability
  • 00400 - default_movie_file.dov is overwritten on EDGE startup
  • 00402 - double arrow decrease on point light intensity edit has bug
  • 00404 - Simdata slow to load csv files
  • 00405 - trackcam plugin doesn't work inside manager
  • 00406 - errors in reconfig scripts should be reported
  • 00408 - remove dsp_overlays plugin
  • 00409 - broken XML in WCS with newer webkit browsers
  • 00410 - Support setting simdata data file via the environment
  • 00411 - DCF_ClientConnect function in DCOMM causes high CPU usage
  • 00412 - doug.node command in manager not marking node as modified
  • 00413 - add ability to disable or scale a color channel on a viewport
  • 00417 - remove libjpeg.so system library dependency if possible
  • 00418 - ability to hide DCOMM library printouts
  • 00419 - manager and novisual modes not working on mac
  • 00423 - add support live mjpeg video in web commanding server
  • 00424 - give EDGE a program icon
  • 00425 - keyboard menu navigation doesn't work
  • 00428 - greek characters requested for overlays
  • 00429 - removing command at index zero in command group broken
  • 00430 - dsp_trail prints extra message with setting width
  • 00431 - add overlay to show camera name
  • 00432 - upgrade blank graphics load
  • 00434 - allow users to override DNS-SD service name
  • 00436 - WCS XML pages should use application/xml as content-type
  • 00437 - add in base64 encoded images to WCS
  • 00438 - new DCOMM tcl command to report connection status to manager
  • 00440 - add ability to check if node is in view of a specific viewport
  • 00441 - upgrade number of internal trails in dsp_trails
  • 00442 - add in some fun models to use during demos
  • 00443 - add dcomm mc_port to xml and WCS output
  • 00447 - update dcomm plugin version string
  • 00448 - WCS connected field should report dcomm connection status
  • 00449 - add support for dcomm to be dynamically loaded and unloaded
  • 00450 - add an easy method to switch between multicast discovery and direct comm
  • 00451 - quick view change buttons in mobile WCS
  • 00452 - make tcldebug flag accessible to plugins
  • 00453 - Odd performance behavor seen when using Ambient Occlusion
  • 00455 - dcomm get_num_overrun_frames hangs on clients
  • 00456 - doug.load_plugin tcl command doesn't update dougplugininfo array
  • 00457 - add doug manager beacon and spy to the EDGE load
  • 00458 - change default TCP port for DCOMM away from 8000
  • 00459 - in simdata GUI pressing enter in dov filename field gives tcl error
  • 00460 - default dov filename may need username in it to avoid permission issues
  • 00461 - canvas plugin may not be loading images correctly in windows
  • 00462 - Lens flare sometimes turns off when it should not
  • 00463 - joystick2_demo may have syntax error
  • 00464 - memory leak in canvas plugin
  • 00465 - flycam plugin reports it found data node when it has not
  • 00466 - dsp_flycam segfaults when unloading the plugin at runtime
  • 00467 - dsp_flycam sometimes has sudden motion at init
  • 00468 - add in ability for dsp_flycam node source to control vernier/coarse selection
  • 00469 - add example for joystick control of camera
  • 00471 - Add simdata support for Trick 13 sims
  • 00472 - make gde script work with newer nvidia drivers
  • 00474 - planet2 bmp mapping adds light past the terminator
  • 00475 - manual host entry on simdata dialog broken
  • 00476 - update default radius of the moon
  • 00483 - Add in lunar Aitken Basin elevation and imagery maps
  • 00514 - Mars map has a grey line across the surface

6.  Known Issues

  • 00074 - problems with the -timing command line option
  • 00086 - possible trackcam bug
  • 00100 - script plugin doesn't handle toggles with flags other than HIDE flags
  • 00102 - ztile boundaries show up as lines in planet2 textures
  • 00103 - weird planet2 shading issues
  • 00114 - comm connection error message can cause seg fault
  • 00121 - DSF_GetMapData() may be returning grey when it shouldn't
  • 00173 - Fix DCF_GetRelPosAtt for double precision
  • 00219 - one canvas per viewport when using associate_canvas helper function
  • 00349 - Record plugin cannot handle command arguments with spaces
  • 00350 - figure out why anti-aliasing looks poor on newer nvidia drivers
  • 00351 - dsp_simdata plugin hangs when attempting to unload it on windows
  • 00352 - initial focus issue on mac
  • 00366 - BASE_ISS state has typos for JimboCam and JIMBO nodes
  • 00387 - CP_7 camera model doesn't rotate with pan/tilt
  • 00403 - poster2 images don't work well with ambient occlusion and blooming
  • 00414 - Simdata stuck while initiating connection
  • 00415 - dsp_hslloader does not error gracefully on unsupported str files
  • 00416 - DOUG provided mouse coordinates not reliable
  • 00420 - dcomm library on Mac gives warning
  • 00427 - ac3d loader may be loading some texture coordinates incorrectly
  • 00433 - Sometimes -ztile produces artifacts at or near the boundry between slices
  • 00439 - switch to dynamic allocation for routines that process config file strings
  • 00477 - libjpeg requires newer glib than RHEL 4.x boxes have
  • 00478 - Incorrect planetary shading on some systems
  • 00479 - EDGE version reported incorrectly as 2.2 when running in windows
  • 00480 - EDGE WCS sometimes has error on Windows
  • 00487 - WCS mobile pages not updating correctly in Internet Explorer
  • 00488 - dsp_jpeggrab can segfault if large images are requested after a small one
  • 00493 - trackcam causing flickering problems when recording frame images for a movie file
  • 00495 - Ambient Occlusion feature not working in 319.xx series of NVIDIA driver
  • 00496 - register_local_service corrupting entries if service name has spaces
  • 00497 - autocollapse command line option broken
  • 00506 - src.dist makefile updates to address warnings on Mac OSX
  • 00509 - problem when DEFINES expand to greater than 500 characters
  • 00510 - bug when selecting user defined playback speed in simdata during dov playback
  • 00511 - Simdata timebar does not update progress during image capture to disk
  • 00512 - Simdata dialogue window interferes with image capture
  • 00513 - Jittery Camera Tracking with Simdata Image Capture
  • 00515 - crazy lightning may occur with some driver versions
  • 00521 - bug in dsp_planet2.info -planets and -planet_layers tcl commands
  • 00522 - bug when loading a state file where a node has only a parent change
  • 00525 - Erroneously culled planet geometry when planet has large elevation deviations
  • 00527 - DCOMM bug where unchanged nodes are still sent out over network
  • 00529 - Scaling a model doesn't apply to graphics model frame
  • 00530 - rendering accuracy issue in CCTV plugin
  • 00531 - typo in lighting_effects_menu.tcl
  • 00537 - simdata does not search for transforms in userdata on win32
  • 00540 - deleting a canvas deletes more than intended
  • 00545 - redefining STARS_CONFIG_FILE does not remove drawstar plugin
  • 00546 - NVIDIA 355.x series driver has issues with ambient occlusion
  • 00552 - lod should hide nodes that are below minimum size or above max distance
  • 00555 - Update benchmarks to work with latest NVIDIA drivers
  • 00561 - fix compiler warnings about deprecated conversions of string constants
  • 00565 - userdata user.cfg has error in TEXTURE_MAP_PATH
  • 00570 - EDGE/DOUG interfaces issues under El Capitan
  • 00572 - EDGE surface shader plugin not working under El Capitan
  • 00573 - potential memory issues in dcomm library
  • 00574 - earth imagery looks a bit bleached out
  • 00577 - output frames directory not being shown on simdata GUI
  • 00578 - time based lod animation doesn't work on windows
  • 00581 - bug with transparent textures when close to the earth
  • 00583 - manager default tcl precision is too low
  • 00586 - EDGE is broken on OSX Sierra
  • 00591 - retrieving canvas foreground and background colors doesn't work
  • 00592 - doug callbacks on nodes seem to be getting called twice
  • 00593 - DSF_LogStatusQ in PixelStream does not work on the Mac.
  • 00598 - transparent models not showing correctly on Macs with AMD graphics
  • 00603 - Ugly underlines for menu accelerators on Ubuntu 16.04

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