X-Git-Url: https://git.mxchange.org/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=NEWS;h=9833947e3484b7bfc03a3a12f0a45718a54ac52e;hb=58cadee5f337ee9b3decf5c4fabe6d3145430cf1;hp=a0fe324460457a33f798dcc8746e033ba934d4b4;hpb=09533ad0a016526f943c0e8f3c550735f60fd134;p=flightgear.git diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index a0fe32446..9833947e3 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -1,10 +1,1126 @@ +New in 0.9.3 +* October 15, 2003 + +* Added a flight "replay" system. +* Many updates to the ATC and AI aircraft subsystem. (David Luff) +* Add support for moving cloud layers. +* New "symbolic" time of day dialog box for easily setting dawn, dusk, + noon, etc. +* Aircaft are now each self contained in their own individual + subdirectories for easier end user addition and removal. +* Many improvements to scene lighting throughout the day->night range + including more realistic sky and fog colors, more relistic scene + illumination, better dusk/dawn sky coloring, better specular + lighting support. +* A nice new chase view has been added. +* Added displaced thresholds on all runways that have them. +* Updated default scenery for the KSFO area. +* Many buildings and bridges added in the San Francisco area. +* Updated airport and navaid database, many new taxiways, many + corrected runways, many new airports (especially outside the USA.) + +* Use the field elevation for GS when no specific altitude listed in + FAA/DAFIF data +* Fix to translate DME and TACAN X/Y channels to paired VHF frequencies + correctly. Thanks to Jorge Van Hemelryck for the fix. +* Fixes to runway search routines (didn't always work correctly under + some circumstances.) +* Many fixes and updates to the autopilot. Autothrottle tracks speed + much better with much less jumping around. +* Expose the tuned navid via the property system to support building + more advanced avionics. +* Improvements to the environment manager and gui's, more control over + turbulence, ability to specify boundary condition layers as well as + aloft condition layers. +* JSBSim updates including a new turbine engine model that supports + things like starting and stopping procedures and thrust reversing. +* UIUCsim updates (compiler warning and namespace conflict fixes.) +* YASim updates (fix drag from shutdown engine.) +* Support for "clock" instruments that operate independently of + computer system time. +* Annunciators shouldn't work if electrical system not serviceable. +* A few updated splash screens. +* Added various fields to net_ctrls and net_fdm to include various + failures, faults, control surface positions, and other interesting + things. +* A few updated joystick definition files. +* Various keyboard mapping tweaks and changes. +* Many updates and tweaks to default material properties and random + land cover objects. +* Updated aircraft: 747, A320, T-38, A-10, B-52, F-104, Fokker 50, + Fokker 100, Piper Cub, P-51, UFO, YF-23, Ornithopter, A-4, C172, + and F-16 +* New Aircraft: J-22, Paraglider, SGS-126 Sailplane, ASW 20, and AN-225. +* Updated cloud textures. + +* Removed dependency on Metakit. The airport and runway databases are now + stored in a simple flat file ascii database. + +* FreeBSD, Solaris, MSVC, Irix, cygwin, and mingwin fixes. + + +New in 0.9.2 +* June 4, 2003 + +* New aircraft available: P51-D (w/ full 3d cockpit), Sea Hawk + (WV908), a research ornithopter (propelled by actual flapping + wings), A10, B-52, F-104, F-15, F-16, OV10, PA28-161, T-6A Texan II, + T-38, British TSR2, YF-23, 737, + +* Updated aircraft: airwave extreme hang glider, asw20 glider, A-4 + Skyhawk, Beech-99, Cessna 172 w/ 3d cockpit, Cessna 310 w/ 3d + cockpit, DC3, Piper J3 Cub, 1903 Wright Flyer, Sopwith Camel, Space + Shuttle, Boeing 747-400 + +* Overhauled menu/gui system and made it xml configurable rather than + hardwired. Include support for things like checkboxes, sliders, and + dials. + +* Added some early multiplayer features. + +* Added support for in-air presets relative to a VOR, NDB, or fix. + +* Support for Futaba, Airtronics, Hitec, JR, Multiplex and Tower R/C + transmitters using the RCJoy USB interface box (see + http://www.rcjoy.com). + +* Much improved sky and coloring as well as more realistic coloring of + the sunset and sunrise. + +* Clouds are drawn on a surface that better matches the underlying + curve of the earth. + +* A few updated terrain textures, better variety of random ground + cover objects. + +* Most weather options can now be set via the GUI. Added an option to + randomize the weather. + +* Various instruments and systems can now be failed/unfailed via the + GUI. + +* Developed scripts to build Navaid and ILS databases from DAFIFT, + FAA, and other data sources. +* Update Navaid and ILS databases based on DAFIFT, FAA, and other data + sources. + +* Continued development of voice ATC, robot aircraft AI, logical + taxiway networks (continues to be a work in progess, but much + progress has been made.) +* Separated out much of the low level model/material management code + and moved it over to SimGear where it can be potentially used by + other projects. +* Separated out the low level sound effect playing/management code and + moved it over to SimGear. +* Added functions to the "telnet" interface to allow remote management + of autopilot waypoints. +* Support the parking brake in the "external" flight dynamics interface. +* Added support for an audio panel (set of switches to set various + avionics audio sources on/off in the aircraft.) +* Add support for speed brake and spoiler controls. +* Many code updates to UIUCmodel including support for ornithopters + (flapping wing vehicles.) +* Many JSBsim code updates include a new turbine engine model. +* Added a "named pipe" external flight dynamics model interface. +* YASim updates including support for manual-pitch control props, + support for wing washout, and adjusting aircraft masses as fuel is + consumed. +* The property picker interface now shows the property values changing + dynamically. +* Added support for a simple annunciator panel (fuel, oil, vacuum, + volts dummy warning lights.) +* Added a "gyro" model. This can be driven electrically (turn + coordinator) or via vacuum (attitude indicator). If one of these + systems failes, the corresponding gyro will spin down realistically + an introduce realistic errors in the gauge reading. +* Model attitude indicator tumbling at extreme attitudes. +* Modeled the pitot system and use that drive the air speed indicator. +* Added a very simplistic volts/amps model to the electrical + system...enough to make the gauges behave plausibly and drive the + annunciator panel correctly. +* Updated the vacuum/suction model to behave more realistically. +* Added Italian and Polish translation for the GUI. + +* Mac OS X fixes. +* Better FreeBSD support. +* Mingwin fixes. +* Improved native sgi compiler support. +* MSVC fixes. + +* Fixed problems in marker beacon audio. +* Fixed several subtle problems in the modeling/positioning of glide + slope transmitters in FlightGear +* Don't allow the dewpoint to go higher than the temperature. +* Don't allow gust speed to be less than base wind speed. +* Fix a couple problems in the external fdm interface that prevented + FlightGear from being driven properly by an external source (i.e. to + act as a image generator only.) +* Fixes to camera parameters for external views (especially when rotating + the view around the different axes.) +* Many miscellaneous code clean ups, many bug fixes, and much code + refactoring. + + +New in 0.9.1 +* December 5, 2002 + +* Fixes a problem with a missing file in the source distribution of 0.9.0 +* Updates to AI aircraft subsystem (this is a work in progress) +* Added a canned ATC voice handling class (using prerecorded voice snippets.) +* Added voice ATIS + + +New in 0.9.0 +* December 3, 2002 + +* Support for fully animated, fully clickable 3d instrument panels. +* Support for runway, approach, and taxiway lighting. Lighting is + directional and intensity varies smoothly with relative view + direction. +* Many new and updated aircraft. +* Improved runway textures. +* Some improved terrain textures. +* Added a util called terrasync to runtime fetch just the scenery you + need from the master scenery server as you fly. No need to + pre-download large chunks of data. +* Add a vacuum system and support for it's failure. +* Add a pitot system and support for it's failure. +* Model gyro spin for various instruments. +* Added support for modeling complex aircraft electrical system. Sample + implimentation for a C172, simplistic electrical model provided for + other aircraft until their specific system is modeled. +* Added a "presets" section to the GUI. +* Localization support for GUI and for command line option help, including + the ability to specify a custom per language font. +* Support for specifying an initial startup runway. +* Splash screen now slowly fades out revealing the ready to run sim. +* Support additional joysticks: Logitech WingMan Force, + Logitech WingMan Extreme Digital 3D (USB), and Saitek Cyborg Gold 3D USB, + CH Virtual Pilot USB/USB CH Pedals, + +* Many updates to External/Network FDM interface. +* Many updates to the JSBSim FDM model code. +* Many updates from the UIUC folk to their FDM package. +* Many updates to the YASim FDM model code (fuel usage, tunable + induced drag parameter, better gear tuning, fix a ground effect bug, + and a standalone config file compiler. +* Make rotational rate FDM values available in the property tree. +* Fix a subtle bug in the ssg partial tree deleter code. +* Started a new XML configurable GUI subsystem. +* Some preliminary support for AI driven aircraft. +* Fix ILS back course needle deflection. +* Fix for ATI driver "issue" causing instrument panels to be all gray. +* Support for toggling 3d instrument hotspot visibility (debugging/learning + tool.) +* Tweaks to instrument panel night lighting. +* Added a per engine fuel pump switch. + +* NOMINMAX fix for cygwin/gcc-3.2 +* Renamed External FDM to NullFDM +* New module/submodule system. +* IRIX build fixes +* Restructured some of the initialization code to facilitate reseting the sim + to alternate presets (airport, runway, offset distance, altitude, speed, etc.) +* Fixed DG heading bug hold to work with new instrumentation updates. +* Updates to autopilot to let it work with perfect values as a compile time + option. +* Split Nav/Com units, and DME out into their own source files. +* Fixes to support newer versions of plib/cvs + + +New in 0.8.0 +* September 7, 2002 + +* The world is now populated with random ground objects with + appropriate type and density for the local ground cover type + (buildings, water towers, farm houses, silos, cows, trees, etc.) +* Many (most?) ground textures updated for a much nicer, more coherent, + more realistic overall look and feel. +* Added a java client library for FlightGear. +* Added some external scripting examples (python.) +* Implemented a Bendix/King KT 70 transponder. +* Implemented a Bendix/King KR 87 adf. +* Added support for 3d instrument panels inside 3d cockpits. +* Added support for animation of 3d models tied to internal properties. +* New/updated aircraft include: Cessna 172, Piper J3 Cub, DC-3, A4 + Skyhawk, Cessna 310, 747, 1903 Wright Flyer (non-linear with stall + modeled, based on wind tunnel data.) +* Convert the magic carpet into a UFO, complete with sound effects and + a 3d model (based on real world data of course.) :-) +* Environment manager overhaul +* Support for a base wind speed with gusts. +* Support for a base wind direction with variation. +* Support for more dynamically reconfigurable cloud layers. Cloud + layers are no longer hard coded. + +* Updates and additions to the FAQ +* Improvements to the sound effects module. +* Autopilot fixes to allow it to work much better on large airliners. +* Added a generic interface for running the flight dynamics model as a + separate process communicating via a network connection. +* Synced with the latest JSBSim code. +* Synced with the latest UIUCmodel code. +* Many fixes and updates to the YASim FDM (fixed flap drag issue, new + tail wheel lock, lots of solver fixes, and fixes to other internal + stuff.) +* Added support for menus defined in an xml file. +* Make the help system start more robustly/quickly in Win32 +* Added support for detecting the name of a joystick and using the + appropriate default joystick config file. +* Overhauled the remote/network property interface. +* Added a --show-aircraft option to dump out a list of all the + available aircraft you can select with the --aircraft=NAME option. +* Added a --random-wind command line option. +* --wind= option can now contain ranges, + i.e. --wind=min_dir:max_dir@min_speed:max_speed; the system will + automatically vary the wind within these ranges. +* A "physical" crash (i.e. too-hard impact with the ground) causes the + sim to freeze. You can then reset the sim to the starting state + with the menu->reset option. + +* Support in the scenery tile cache for maintaining tiles in the cache + relative to several view points that could be *very* far apart. +* Brake makes the magic carpet fly backwards. +* Many clean ups, fixes, and improvements with the tile pager. Memory free + is now done incrementally and spread out through multiple frames to hide it. +* Modernized the autoconf/make scripts. +* Cleaned up old cruft from the build system. +* Default to using FGEnvironment +* Removed support for efence (in favor of valgrind.) +* Bumped minimum plib version required up to 1.4.2, however the latest + cvs (and hopefully release) works much better. +* Added valgrind debugging config files/scripts. +* Weeded out many warnings/errors flagged by valgrind. +* Overhauled the FGSubsystem class. +* Fixed reporting of winds, cloudbase and altimeter setting. +* FGSteam converted to a proper FGSubsystem. +* Fix fog on 3dfx cards. +* Added internal support for turning each tank on/off individually. +* Added support for a fuel selector switch. +* Fixes to builtin property browser. +* Fixed several math overflow problems with time elapsed calculations + that had crept in. These would cause some things to stop updating + (like portions of the instrument panel, and radio station frequency + matching.) +* Updates to the network OpenGC interface. + +* Irix fixes. +* Mac OS X fixes. +* MSVC fixes. +* IA-64 w/ Intel compiler fixes. + +* automake/conf script enhancemnts and fixes. +* Updated the UIUCModel code. +* Removed some dos line endings that crept in. +* Spelling fixes. +* Removed some depricated code related to the old view management system. +* Fix a problem with VOR station lookups where we wouldn't always find + the closest station of a given frequency. +* Changed the default Nav radio frequencies to be more appropriate for SFO. +* Retrimmed the C172 +* Added seats and other interior stuff to the J3 Cub, and retrimmed. Also + fixed wing incidence in the 3d visual model. +* Fixed C310u3a-3d. 3d cockpit instruments can now be seen. +* Fixes to the DC-3 such as tank location; other surface and wheel position + adjustments. Increase effectiveness of rudder, vstab, and hstab. +* Updated some of the preconfigured joystick files. +* Updated man pages +* Fixed problem with pressure/altitude getting botched up after a reset +* Use a nicer helvetica font for the menus. +* Various fixes to the internal pui property browser. +* Fixed a typo in the scenery file loader that could cause a crash on + some platforms. +* More joystick configuration defaults. (Saitek Cyborg Gold 3D USB, + non FF sidewinder precision 2 usb) +* More texture tweaks. +* Additional fixes and panel work for the J3 Cub. + + +New in 0.7.10 +* April 20, 2002 + +* Much work on drawing and animating 3d aircraft models for things like the + chase and tower views. Propellers spin, control surfaces move, gear + retracts, etc. +* Overhauled mouse handling code and make it user configurable. +* Added a new environment (as in weather) subsystem. +* Added a new logging module +* Aded a new ATC subsystem. +* Virtual 3d Cessna 172 cockpit (work in progress) but many things are + animated and working. +* Virtual 3d Cessna 310 cockpit. +* Instrument panel background can now be a set of tiled textures so we can + achieve *much* higher resolution. + +* Major property manager overhaul. +* Major view code overhaul. All views are now configurable via config files. +* Major overhaul of the sound manager, it is now much more + configurable with many sound effect improvements. +* Seperate XML I/O opertions into a separate header. +* Impliment a standard FGSubsystem interface for module consistency. +* Add waypoint dialog now shows entire current waypoint list in a scroll box. +* Elevator trim position now shown on the HUD. +* Use an LED font for radios (and added infrastructer/support for + additional fonts.) +* Continued work on developing a generalized network interface to an external + flight dynamics model running as a separate process on the same or different + machine. +* Initial glideslope and climb rate can be specified from the command line. +* Fixes and improvements to make ground trimming more robust. +* Many JSBSim updates and improvements, JSBSim now exports all it's + interesting internal state via the property manager. +* Many updates to UIUCsim including support for non-linear models, flaps. +* Move tower view location when teleporting to a new airport. +* Created a new /devices subtree in the property manager to display + current device status. + +* Many YASim updates and bug fixes, autogen contact points for + collision detection, support for full engine startup procedure, + minimal support for magnetos, support skid objects (non-rolling gear + objects), reduce idle power a bit, export gear compression amount to + the property tree, include wind when computing airspeed, + +* Fixes to the property picker/browser. +* Fixes and updates to the configure script. +* Several potential memory abuse bugs detected (valgrind) and fixed (Melchior) +* Fix an instrument panel text bug ... an integer overflow could prevent + the text from displaying if the panel was turned off for more than 37.8 + minutes. +* Fixed a segfault when trying to audibly ident a nav station. Changes in + the sound manager code broke some assumptions. +* Fixed a bug (another int overflow) which could trick the event + manager into thinking the next time to run the events is *way* in + the future. +* Various performance optimizations. +* More work on saving/restoring flights +* Of all the ILS stations of the specified frequency, pick the one the most + directly points at us. +* Various restructures in the scenery loading code in preparation for + more flexible runway lighting support. +* Fixes/improvements to the scenery/line interesection code. + +* Various IRIX fixes. +* Various MSVC fixes. +* Various compiler warning messages fixed. + + +New in 0.7.9 (final) +* February 16, 2002 + +* Fixes to the Thanks file. +* Fix --time-offset in the man page and options help. +* Fixed the spelling of Celsius. +* Cleaned up some stray cout's +* Removed some redundant FG* class qualifiers in various headers. +* GUI dialog box fixes for autopilot. +* Ensure that initial engine settings are copied over from FlightGear + to JSBSim. +* FreeBSD fix from JSBSim. + + +New in 0.7.9pre2 +* February 13, 2002 + +* JSBSim FGPiston mixture improvements +* Enable Audio by default in MSVC builds +* Added a clock freeze option. + + +New in 0.7.9pre1 +* February 12, 2002 + +* Switch to JSBSim (jsbsim.sf.net) as our default flight model. +* Added additional aircraft: Cessna 182, Cessna 172 (ifr panel), + and a Cessna 310 (twin prop). +* Added an entirely new set of flight dynamics modeling code by Andy Ross. + Includes several aircraft such as a 747, A4, and DC-3. + This is (Y)et (A)nother Flight Dynamics (Sim)ulator. It is a first cut + of a "different take" on FDM design. It's intended to be very simple + to use, producing reasonable results for aircraft of all sorts and sizes, + while maintaining simulation plausibility even in odd flight conditions + like spins and aerobatics. It's at the point now where one can + actually fly the planes around. +* Added an optional embedded http server that provides a property + manager interface to external programs and scripts. +* Added an optional embedded http server that can serve out live + screen shots to anyone on the web. +* Sync with the latest JSBSim code. +* Added simple ATIS support. +* More flexible autopilot that can be tuned per aircraft. +* Many updates to the HUD to allow it to handle a much bigger set of + symbology and functionality +* Support for back course ILS approaches. +* Implimented DME ETE and speed. +* Added support for rudder and aileron trim. +* Many improvents with piston engine and propeller modeling. Engine + startup procedures work, and engine guages work. +* Added support for retractable gear. +* Added 'master freeze' and 'fuel freeze' modes. Would like to add + other freeze modes soon. +* Added a 'high' level aircraft config file that specifies things like + the FDM code to use, the aircraft config file, the 3d model, the + instrument panel, autopilot config, etc. +* Added a neat external 'chase' view control panel. +* Added a GUI interface to the property manager system. +* Moved keybinding definitions to a config file. +* Many additions and improvements to the sound effects including + stall horn, tire squeek, ground rumble, wind noise, flaps, etc. +* Enable introduction music in windows (off by default on all platforms) +* Added support for the OpenGC glass cockpit project. +* Added support for flying ILS approaches in both runway directions if the + same frequency is used in both cases. + +* Added an autogen.sh script for those compiling from CVS code. +* Attempt to support more incompatible varients of the + automake/autoconf tools. +* Added basic man pages. +* Removed old remnants of plib-1.2.x support. Plib-1.4.x is now required. +* Added support for building mandrake packages (other packaging system + contributions welcom.) +* Various initialization and startup sequence fixes and tweaks. + This helps get the flight dynamics model going reliably and robustly. + It also helps get initial time of day effects correct. +* Fixed a config problem that could lead to bogus builds for people with + Voodoo cards. +* Better support for running with an alternate time/date for when we + are being slaved to an external data source. +* Fixed (simplistic) terrain following autopilot mode. +* Fixes to problems with window aspect ratio that could surface if the + window was resized. +* Fix several off by one errors in hud_card.cxx +* Fix gauge spelling error. +* Modified FGSubsystem::update() to take an int parameter for delta time. +* Many internal fixes and enhancements to the core code that manages + instrument panel modeling and rendering. +* LaRCsim EGT doesn't show 'running' values while cranking. +* Fixes to JSBSim so that the slip/skid ball is much more realistically modelled +* Added support for an unlimited number of fuel tanks. +* Multi-engine throttle fixes. +* A round of updates to the UIUC flight dynamics model. +* Fixed an annoying tile cache scheduling bug. This makes tile paging + much more robust even with teleporting and reseting. +* Fixed a potential mouse freeze up condition on windows. +* Converted the materials file to xml. +* Tweaked and updated initial option and config file parsing to be + more intuitive and robust. +* Check for the proper version of the base file and exit gracefully + if not found. +* Fixed a problem with the initial view offset being lost. +* Various floating point / initial value bug fixes +* Added support for tracing property manager reads and writes (for + debugging purposes.) +* Fixed the problem where the simulator clock time would go goofy + when scenery was being loaded. +* Make the tile cache system more tolerant of situations where the tile + cache is full, but no entry qualifies for removal. + +* MSVC fixes. +* IRIX fixes. +* FreeBSD fixes. +* Mac OS X fixes. +* Better cygwin and mingwin support. +* Better support for gcc-3.0 + + +New in 0.7.8 +* July 13, 2001 +* Updated to the latest JSBSim flight dynamics model (http://jsbsim.sf.net) +* First release of a bundled utility: fgjs which assists you in creating + a joystick/button configuration for your setup. +* Updated airport data file with taxiways at many major airports. +* Better support for using an external browser to view online help + components. Windows support for this will be included in the next + revision. +* Now using plib-1.4.x which supports more than 3 concurrent sounds. +* Most of the README's and documentation has been reviewed and brought + up to date. +* Support for ultra-hires screen dumps suitable for large scale + printed output. +* Updated, more flexible binary scenery format. +* Support for using digital axes (i.e. a hat) as a pair of buttons + which can be mapped to any function a button could be mapped to. +* Added user documentation to the base package +* Added a c172 mini panel. +* Improved c172 panel graphics. +* Added units to configuration files +* Fixed X15 panel +* External view panning fix ups. +* Fixed the segfault on exit bug. +* Lots of property manager tweaks. Appened units to property name to + make it explicit, adjusted read/write/archive bits and defaults +* MSVC fixups. +* gcc-3.0 fixups. +* Irix fixups. +* Fixed a potential segfault in radio station lookup/search code. +* Fixed a bug in the audio system intialization order that could cause + a segfault in some circumstances. +* Fixed a typo in the 2nd tank property name so it's value is now accessible + from the instrument panel. +* Fixed a bug when loading the "old" binary scenery which prevented ground + lighting from being generated. +* Jettison old conditionally compiled plib-1.2.x code, we now require + plib-1.4.x or higher. +* Eliminated some convoluted that generated a harmless, but confusing + "*** NO TIMEZONE" error message, +* Fixed doubled bindings for joystick buttons. +* Threading fixups. +* Fixed a bug with the time warping/offset code. You can again + startup with a proper time offset if you like. +* Fixed a couple memory problems ... attempting to access/use/write to + previously freed memory. + +New in 0.7.7 +* June 20, 2001 + +* Cleaned up various warning messages +* Various Cygwin fixes. +* Various MSVC fixes. +* Various Irix Mips fixes. + +* Check for null panel before passing mouse events to panel object. +* Fixed panel edge artifacts (due to unwanted texture wrapping.) +* Fixed a typo in the base/materials file. +* Various property manager fixes. +* Various property manager lookup optimizations. +* Fixed a bug in the autopilot altitude hold that crept in. + +* Converted from hardcoded to configurable keyboard bindings. +* Added an FGSubsystem base class so subsystems can be managed with a + common api. +* Keyboard commands are now completely remapable. Removed BFI and + keyboard in place of remapable inputs. +* Started to impliment a command manager. This along with the + property manager will go a long ways toward building infrastructure + for scripting. +* Started laying infrastructure for creating ultra-high-res tiled + screen shots suitable for printers. +* Synced with a recent version of JSBSim. +* GUI code split into smaller logical subcomponents. +* FGOptions converted to use property manager directly. +* "delta-t" and fdm interface timing fixes and tweaks. +* Added a sound effect manager class at the FlightGear level. + +* Support for setting a starting position as and offset distance (and / + or radial) from your specified starting postition. This allows you to + initialize on final x miles out at y altitude. +* Many updates to make a much more realistic single engine and prop model + with atmospheric and velocity dependencies. Fuel flow now modeled. +* Straightened out magnetic offset issues with VOR stations so we can + navigate properly from real avaition charts. +* Added a direct network interface support for the "Atlas" moving map + program. (Output radio stack settings so current VOR and OBS can be + visualized.) +* Autopilot made to work more like a real world autopilot (rather than + based on perfect values.) Autopilot wing leveler is slaved off the + turn coordinator. Heading hold is slaved from the DG (which drifts). + Nav and ILS holds slave off the needle position. +* Backcorse ILS needle should move in correct direction now. +* Identing of NAV radios (and individual volume control) now work. +* Don't play DME ident if no colocated DME. +* VOR/ILS/ADF range pickup realistically modeled as per AIM. +* Added support for marker beacons. +* Support for loading and saving the current 'simulator state' using + an xml formated file. +* Added threaded tile paging for systems with pthread support. +* Added high level support for creating airport taxiway and runway signs. +* Many updates and fixes to the "installation and getting started" manual. +* Support for adding static objects to the scenery. +* Many updates and new features for the xml configurable panel engine. + Many corresponding improvements to the default instrument panel. +* Support added for incrementally numbering screen snapshots. +* Added support for a new, smaller, faster binary scenery format. +* Added an xml configurable HUD engine. +* Added interface glue to propogate wind values to LaRCsim. + +New in 0.7.6 +* December 15, 2000 +* Added night ground cover lights with user controllable densities on + a per texture basis. Lights have a bit of a "fog punch through" effect. +* Support added for "shaped" instrument panels. +* Added support for virtual panels that are larger than the screen + space which can scroll. +* Added waypoint and route flying support to the autopilot and HUD. +* New highly detailed runway textures with accurate markings. +* Added a basic piston engine model, with support for rpm, egt, cht, mp, + and mixture. +* Many tweaks and improvements to the c172 instrument panel. +* Corrections and additions to the airport and navaid database. +* Added an external interface to the property manager so you can + "telnet" into a running copy of FlightGear, cd through the property + tree and examine and even change values, all from a remote computer. +* Improvements to flight model initialization. +* Fixes and improvements to the save/restore code. +* Added a load/save dialog box for saving/restoring your current flight. +* Program notes max texture size for your card/driver so it can load + higher resultion textures if they are available and if you can use + them. +* Added a visibility= command line option for setting intial visibility + distance. +* Range of tiles loaded and drawn are now directly calculated from the current + visibility distance so that the ground always blends smoothly into sky. +* Rewrote the tile caching scheme so it is now more flexible, more dynamic, + simpler, and more robust. +* Updates to the FDM bus. +* Many clean ups with the view code to prepare the way for a greater + variety of external views. +* MSVC project files now included in the source distribution. +* Fixed a view bug that could make the aircraft model appear rotated + incorrectly +* Fixed a bug with the autopilot rate of climb hold. +* Internal property manager tweaks. +* Additional materials can be aliased to an existing material to save + texture space (at the expense of less texture variety) +* MSVC tweaks. +* MacOS tweaks. + +New in 0.7.5 +* September 18, 2000 +* Aircraft now starts at end of runway closest to desired heading. +* Runways now have accurate markings. +* Addition of a completely reconfigurable instrument panel. +* Tons of panel tweaks and fixes. Gyro now drifts, relocated whisky compass, + skid ball moves in the right direction, etc. +* Updates and tweaks to network multiplayer code. +* Tweaks to ground steering sensitivity. +* Updates to the UIUC flightmodel and icing research code. +* Fixed the sound problem in the previous version. +* Current scenery normal is now available for use. +* Current load queue size is now available for use. +* Added a configure time check for proper simgear version. +* Explicitely link in -lpthread if it exists. +* Fixed a couple namespace problems. +* MacOS and MSVC tweaks. +* Renamed JSBsim to JSBSim +* Added support in the material library for non-repeating textures. + +New in 0.7.4 +* July 19, 2000 + +* VOR reception now scales with altitude. +* Added differential braking support. +* Landing gear modeling code now works in JSBSim +* Overhauled cloud code substantially, new cloud textures. +* Added support for Ray Woodworth's 5 axis motion chair. +* Red light the panel at night and shade based on time of day. + +* Fixed autopilot altitude hold increment bug. +* Fixed screen snap shot function. +* Fixed mach number for LaRCsim. +* --start-date-gmt option fixed. +* Fixes to uiuc includes and initializations +* Fixes to periodic scheduler. +* Fixed a tile loading bug if the load queue wasn't empty before a reset or + teleport. + +* Some additional MSVC5 portability fixes. +* Tweaks to build with newest gcc under Irix contributed by Erik Hofman. + +* Clean out a pile of old junk in the material manager library from the + pre-ssg days, and majorly overhauled it. +* Complete reengineering of the panel code in preparation for moving the + configuration out into a data file. +* Lots of hashing around with Joystick support trying to achieve something + that is flexible enough to handle the zillions of possible configurations + out there. Hopefully we are approaching a workable solution. +* Better windows support in our joystick module. +* View code simplifications and optimizations contributed by Norman Vine. + +* Added support for $FG_SCENERY and --fg-scenery=path so scenery can have a + different location from the base package. +* Moved drop in sky module, world time module, ephemeris module, and low + level communications modules over to simgear. +* Replaced gdbm with metakit +* Added David Megginson's property manager + + +New in 0.7.3 +* May 18, 2000 +* Added a radio stack 2 VOR/ILS and an ADF to the instrument panel. + You can change the frequencies by clicking on the knobs on the + instrument panels. You can now navigate with VOR/ADF/DME and fly + ILS approaches. +* Added a chronometer to the instrument panel. +* Added a "wet" compass to the top of the instrument panel. +* Compass, vsi, and altitute instruments and vacuum system are more + accurately modeled. +* Added a magnetic variation model. +* Added navaid database management and query code. +* Added magvar offset to VOR radials. +* Heading bug now display magnetic heading rather than true heading. +* Autopilot now has modes to track a VOR and GS. +* Added custom joystick client support so sim can be flown from a + remote joystick connected to another machine. This is in support of + some custom hardware located in the human factors research lab of the + university of minnesota. +* HUD controls are a bit different "h" toggles through day/night/off + modes and "H" cycles through brightness levels. +* Norman Vine contributed code to optionally do antialiased hud lines + on hardware that supports this. Norman also contributed additional + hud cleanups and updates. +* Updates to JSBsim flight dynamics code that includes a generic + reconfigurable flight control system, a initial state trimming routine, + support for wind and weather, support for flaps, independent trim control, + config files changes +* Updates to LaRCsim flight dynamcis code contributed by UIUC that + allows loading aircraft specifications at runtime from config files. + UIUC is using flightgear as a platform to do icing research. The UIUC + aircraft use the c172 gear model for now which causes some weirdness + on the ground for some of the larger aircraft. +* Flight model no longer has to be chosen at compile time. +* Separated ephemeris code from the actual sky rendering code and gave + this whole section a big overhaul. The moon should now consistantly + have the correct phase. +* Rebuilt the sky dome using ssg. +* Removed dependencies on mat3.h and friends (old srgp support lib) +* Airport lookups now done through gdbm (a light weight embedded database.) +* Converted ssgVTable's to ssgVtxTables which do proper memory + management and should facilitate use of compiled vertex arrays once + ssg add support for these. +* Overhauled autopilot internals, separated out the gui controls from + the actual autopilot code. +* Cygwin32 build fixes +* MSVC++ build fixes +* Mac build fixes + +New in 0.7.2 +* February 17, 2000 +* Lots of code reorganizations +* Build requires plib-1.1.x +* Build requires SimGear-0.0.x +* LaRCsim/c172 is now the default aircraft model. +* Added flaps support to control model. +* Lots of updates and tweaks for the LaRCsim/c172 model. +* Use a more standard texture/blend mode combination for sun/moon halos to + avoid render path that's not supported by all cards/drivers. +* Change reported speed on hud from V_equiv_kts to V_calibrated_kts +* Instrument panel rewrite by David Megginson. This isn't quite as flashy + as the first pass, but is much more functional, plays much better with + opengl, and it should be relatively easy for someone with graphical skills + to make it look more spiffy. +* MacOS fixes contributed by Darrell Walisser. +* Many JSBsim updates. +* Added a screen snapshot facility (F3). +* Added a load/save state function contributed by David Megginson. +* Added support for various I/O protocols and channels so that flightgear + can communicate with itself and other programs through a variety of means. +* Bug fix: The aircraft model used for external views was being included in + the height above terrain check so when the view position and the aircraft + model collided the current altitude kept getting pushed up to compensate, + but of course the aircraft model would get pushed up as well because it + tracks the current aircraft position and orientation. Thus you had a never + ending cycle ... +* Oliver's multiplayer network code now moved to his own subdirectory: + NetworkOLK +* Added simulated cloud puffs as we pass through the cloud layer. +* Cleaned up some memory leaks occuring between ssg and flightgear. +* Update to Christian's weather data base code. + +New in 0.7.1 +* Durk Talsma added a nifty cloud layer. +* Default to Christian Mayer's new weather system. +* Added routines to do screen printing contributed by Mark Vallevand. +* Added routines to do screen shots to ppm graphics file (all platforms) + contributed Rich Kaszeta. +* Added a magic carpet (aka slew) mode. +* Added a hot air balloon simulator mode. (alpha) +* Added a simple (direct lincage) autocoordation feature. +* Added a mode to control view (side to side and up and down) with the mouse. +* Fixed a DEM decoding problem which caused most of the terrain to be 256 + meter too high (and regenerated the world scenery with proper elevations.) +* Updates to JSBsim. +* Added support for a pilot view offset from the center of gravity. +* Various platform portability fixes. +* Updated time-offset/syncing command line options. +* Updated the FDM <==> Flight Gear interface to be more object oriented. + This should hopefully pave the way for being able to simulate several + concurrent entities. +* Removed unimplemented menu entries. +* Various scenery tools changes and enhancements in preparation for adding + runways (hopefully for the next release.) + +New in 0.7.0 +* Autopilot can now fly great circle routes. +* Incorporated a first stab at some networking code contributed by Oliver + Delise. +* Added Christian Mayer's new weather subsystem. +* Started adding support for "external" views ... still needs some work. +* Added a flight model acceleration funtion. +* Added support for mouse yoke control contributed by David Megginson. +* FDM model hertz now definable from the command line. +* Added initial timezone support so the user can have better control and more + options for setting the starting time of the sim. +* We now draw nonexistant tiles as ocean which means we only have to create + and distribute tiles that contain some sort of land mass. + +* Replaced basic render engine with plib's ssg (simple scene graph). +* Now expect plib to be installed in it's one true and official location. +* Added support for timegm() if it exists which explicitely expects GMT input. +* A bit of your basic code reorganization and shuffling. + +* Removed tools dependency on libgfc. Functionality is now covered by + shapelib which has been added into the Tools tree. +* Added support for the wonderful GSHHS global land mass data set. +* Removed dependecy on process-dem.pl script. +* Created a new distributed/parallel tile build system ... hmmm kind of super + computer or beowulf style stuff for getting large chunks of scenery built + as fast as possible. +* Only generate tiles that have land mass data since the sim can recreate pure + ocean tiles on the fly. +* First stab at a water flattening scheme to prevent oceans, lakes, and rivers + from running up and down the sides of hills. +* Changed the default "Work/" subdirectory layout. +* Updates to better handle segment boundaries in preparation for real airport + runway and lighting modeling. +* Updates and enhancements to my polygon management class. + +* Updates to JSBsim. +* Updates to Tony's c172 model. +* Updated getting started guide from Micheal Basler. + +* FreeBSD portability tweaks. +* MACos portability tweaks. +* Borland C++ tweaks. +* MSVC++ tweaks. + +New in 0.6.0 +* Tons of improvements with scenery creation. Inter-tile gaps have been + fixed, distorted textures have been fixed, real coastlines have been added, + and many other subtle improvements. +* Tools for parallelizing the scenery building tasks. For instance by using + 20 machines in parallel, scenery for the entire USA can be regenerated in + just over 4 hours vs. 70+ hours on a single machine. +* Texture scale can be specified (and changed)( in the materials file. The + sim must be rerun for the change to take effect. +* Windows now uses plib joystick code so rudder pedals should now work. +* Now builds against Steve Baker's plib (portable game devel library) + distributed separately (www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker/plib/) +* Many source code changes for the MacOS port contributed by Darrell + Walisser (the port isn't quite there yet ...) +* Source code changes for better compiling with the Borland compiler. +* Source code changes for better compiling with the native Irix compilers. +* Fixed a bug so you can now fly across the international date line (or + more precisely the division between longitude = +/-180. +* Tweaks to the Astro section contributed by Durk Talsma. +* Autopilot improvements contributed by Norman Vine. +* Fonts/characters now drawn with texture maps for increased speed. +* Instrument panel can be toggled on and off with "P". +* GUI interface for tweaking some autopilot parameters. +* HUD appearance and layout changes contributed by Norman Vine, includes + faster font drawing for much better performance. +* Reset function added to reset you to your starting conditions. +* GUI function to enter a new airport id (and be transported there) +* Added serial output support for an "in-development" full motion cockpit. +* "Just in time" texture loading to reduce initial sim loading time. + + +New in 0.59 (This is an intermediate/stepping stone release. Skip this + release if you are interested in stability.) +* IRIX portability changes and support for native SGI compilers. +* Solaris portability tweaks +* Incorporated some MacOS portability changes (although the port is not + yet complete.) +* Changes to allow adjustment of the autopilot settings while it is + activated. +* Began complete overhaul of scenery generation tools. +* Fixed a view frustum culling bug. +* separated lib GPC (generic polygon clipper.) GPC is not "freeware" and + the author has explicitely refused our request to distribute source code + for this library with Flight Gear. +* updated installation and getting started guide +* switched to a simpler, lighter weight frame rate calculation method. +* new tile division scheme. +* GPS serial *output* fixes. +* Added a nifty halo to both the sun and moon. Preparation for allowing + subtle moon lighting effects at night. +* Incorporated Jon Berndt's new C++ flight model rewrite. +* Autopilot settings can be adjusted while active. +* Updates to the instrument panel. +* Fixed AOA reading on the HUD. +* Added random splash screens. +* Modified scenery loader to accept tri-fans. +* Other non-backwards compatible changes to scenery file format and tile + layout. + + +New in 0.58 +* Added JSBsim alpha code ... this is Jon S. Berndts alpha FDM rewrite. + Still lots to do, but you can watch a balistic flight for a short time. +* Renamed Simulator/Flight to Simulator/FDM +* Tweaks to assist building FGFS on solaris platforms. +* Moved Lib/DEM to Tools/DEM +* Started preparations for scenery generation tools overhaul. +* More MSVC++ support. +* Removed code that made the sun bigger at the horizon since this is just + an optical illusion in real life. +* Bug fixed so that the sim can start out at an airport below sea level. + +New in 0.57 +* Converted to a simpler frame rate counting method. +* Fixed the AOA reading on the HUD. +* Removed gpc from the Lib section of distribution by request of the + gpc Author. The gpc license is unfortunately not compatible with + the GPL. I may look for an alternative library, or just require + that developers download this library separately. +* First slew of changes from the MacOS porting effort contributed by + "Robert Puyol" . +* Support for an arbitrary number of serial ports + additional serial port + output tweaks. +* Serial output tweaks to make things more robust and act more like a GPS. +* Portability enhancements for Borland, Solaris, and SGI. +* Some internal class renaming and reorganizations. fgFLIGHT becomes FGState. + fgCONTROLS becomes FGControls. +* Started work on an "external" flight model so the sim can be driven from + external input (serial port, network, file, etc.) +* Fixed a problem that creeped in with setting the initial startup altitude. + This could cause an unrecoverable bounce and you'd end up flipped on your + back. Should be fixed now. +* Sun now appears to grow in size as it gets very low in the horizon. +* Fixed a view frustum culling bug where the scene was not accurately culled + when your view was anything other than straight forward. + +New in 0.56 +* Changed default HUD units to the more standard feet units. You can still + use meters by specifying the command line option "--units-meters". +* Added some initial joystick support using Steve's joystick interface class. + This works great under Linux, but Steve's class now needs to be ported to + Windoze and other platforms. +* Also added a fall back to the GLUT joystick routines for windows (until + we can find better joystick support.) +* Added some initial serial port support for acting like gps and outputing + nmea data such that could be fed into a flight map software package. +* Miscellaneous code clean ups, portability improvements, and optimizations. +* Switched to a streams based error/debug logging system that can be + completely stripped out for a release build (./configure --without-logging) +* Support for cygwin32 b20 compiler (latest release) +* Continued progress on instrument panel +* Support for starting fgfs at higher resolutions. + +New in 0.55 +* New version of gpc (generic polygon clipping library) from + http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/alan/software/ +* Brakes (use "b" to toggle) +* Added an altitude hold module to the autopilot. Lock your current altitude + with "ctrl-a", "cntr-a" again will deactivate. (Also lock your current + heading with "ctrl-h", and again to deactivate.) +* Added a terrain following module ... "ctrl-t" to activate. +* Added an autothrottle ... "ctrl-s" to activate. +* Fixes so that terrain tools will work in windoze. +* More STL & Compiler compatibility fixes. +* Changes to use a Point3 class. +* Fixed win95/98 time problem that limited fps to about 18.3 + +New in 0.54 +* Implimented audio envelopes so that pitch of engine changes with throttle +* Textured moon, and rewritten/restructured Astro code. +* More optimizations and code cleanups. (Norman Vine, Bernie Bright, Charlie + Hotchkiss.) +* Bug fixed that was causing odd display artifacts due to a degenerate + fragment being created for every tile. +* Bug fixed that caused scenery generation to go bad (misplaced fclose on an + invalid file descriptor.) +* Code changes to support g++ 2.7 STL (from Bernie Bright) + +New in 0.53 +* Some initial "GameGLUT" support contributed by Gary R. Van Sickle + (tiberius@braemarinc.com) +* Tracked down and eliminated some memory access type bugs that were + causing segfaults on some platforms, with some compilers using various + optimization flags. +* Assorted code optimizations submitted by Norman Vine. +* Renamed fg -> fgfs +* Shuffled files. + - Created a new directory Simulator/Airports/ to handle airport data + specific tasks + - Created Simulator/Object/ to handle basic rendering objects +* Panel code update from Friedemann Reinhard (use --enable-panel to activate) +* Contributions from Bernie Bright + - Created some new classes to enable pointers-to-functions and + pointers-to-class-methods to be treated like objects. These objects + can be registered with fgEVENT_MGR. + - File "Include/fg_callback.hxx" contains the callback class defns. + - Modified fgEVENT and fgEVENT_MGR to use the callback classes. Also + some minor tweaks to STL usage. + - Added file "Include/fg_stl_config.h" to deal with STL portability + issues. Added an initial config for egcs (and probably gcc-2.8.x). + Don't have access to Visual C++ so I've left that for someone else. + - This file is influenced by the stl_config.h file delivered with egcs. + - Added "Include/auto_ptr.hxx" which contains an implementation of the + STL auto_ptr class which is not provided in all STL implementations + and is needed to use the callback classes. + - Deleted fgLightUpdate() which was just a wrapper to call + fgLIGHT::Update(). + - Modified fg_init.cxx to register two method callbacks in place of the + old wrapper functions. + - The new classes in libmisc.tgz define a stream interface into zlib. + I've put these in a new directory, Lib/Misc. Feel free to rename it + to something more appropriate. However you'll have to change the + include directives in all the other files. Additionally you'll have + add the library to Lib/Makefile.am and Simulator/Main/Makefile.am. + + The StopWatch class in Lib/Misc requires a HAVE_GETRUSAGE autoconf + test so I've included the required changes in config.tgz. + + There are a fair few changes to Simulator/Objects as I've moved + things around. Loading tiles is quicker but thats not where the delay + is. Tile loading takes a few tenths of a second per file on a P200 + but it seems to be the post-processing that leads to a noticeable + blip in framerate. I suppose its time to start profiling to see where + the delays are. + + I've included a brief description of each archives contents. + + Lib/Misc/ + zfstream.cxx + zfstream.hxx + C++ stream interface into zlib. + Taken from zlib-1.1.3/contrib/iostream/. + Minor mods for STL compatibility. + There's no copyright associated with these so I assume they're + covered by zlib's. + + fgstream.cxx + fgstream.hxx + FlightGear input stream using gz_ifstream. Tries to open the + given filename. If that fails then filename is examined and a + ".gz" suffix is removed or appended and that file is opened. + + stopwatch.hxx + A simple timer for benchmarking. Not used in production code. + Taken from the Blitz++ project. Covered by GPL. + + strutils.cxx + strutils.hxx + Some simple string manipulation routines. + + Simulator/Airports/ + Load airports database using fgstream. + Changed fgAIRPORTS to use set<> instead of map<>. + Added bool fgAIRPORTS::search() as a neater way doing the lookup. + Returns true if found. + + Simulator/Astro/ + Modified fgStarsInit() to load stars database using fgstream. + + Simulator/Objects/ + Modified fgObjLoad() to use fgstream. + Modified fgMATERIAL_MGR::load_lib() to use fgstream. + Many changes to fgMATERIAL. + Some changes to fgFRAGMENT but I forget what! + New in 0.52 +* Stars added in 8 stages as sky gets darker for a smoother more realistic + transition. +* rewrote star loader to significantly improve load times. +* Tweaked sky brightness and dawn/dusk colors. +* Fixed a small problem with moon rendering. * Fog color tries to track the sky color at the center of view in sunrise and sunset situations. * Optimizations from Norman Vine * Code fixes and tweaks from Charlie Hotchkiss. * Added an --enable/disable-sound option. * Added a pause key "p" +* Added command line options to specify initial position and orientation. +* Added command line option to start in paused or unpaused state. New in 0.51 * Translucent menus @@ -100,7 +1216,7 @@ New in 0.44: * command line option to set starting position by airport ID * Cleaned up initialization sequence to eliminate interdependencies between sun position, lighting, and view position. This creates a - valid single pass initialization path. + valid single pass initialization path. * use already calculated LaRCsim values to create the roll/pitch/yaw transformation matrix