RELEASE.txt

Stage RELEASE.txt
==================

These are the Stage release notes.

For introduction and license see README.txt
For installation notes see INSTALL.txt

Version 4.3.0
-------------
* gratefully merged Adrian Böckenkamp's (CodeFinder2) fork upstream into rtv/Stage.
* fixed corrupted strings in GUI bug
* fixed ranger visualizations bug (only showed up on some platform/driver combos)
* build/install changes to play nicely with ROS (for the Lunar release of stage_ros)

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2017.4.27

Version 4.2.1
-------------
* add 'confirm_on_quit' option to world section to skip confirmation dialog on exit
* add continuous integration support by Travis CI
* fix segfault in ranger visualization
* fix segfault in blockgroup.cc:236 (gluTessEndPolygon()) when model size (x,y,z) is 0.0
* minor UI improvments (allow changing Stage's caption, allow centering the window)
* add ability to load worlds/models from std::istream for more flexibility
* fix compiler errors in debug build
* make odom integration error publicly accessible (see #67)
* don't crash/segfault in ctrl/wander when there's only 1 range sensor (see #59)
* fix errors reported by the most recent gcc 6.3.1 (on Debian 9 SID), #63 in particular
* improve/unify coding style (strip trailing spaces, use clang-format)
* fix compiler error reported with strict flags (-Wall -Wextra -pedantic -Werror)
* fix issues reported by cppcheck v1.72
* minor updates in docs (cosmetics, make comments visible in doxygen)

Adrian Böckenkamp (CodeFinder2) boeckenkamp@ls7.cs.tu-dortmund.de - 2017.3.23

Version 4.1.1
-------------
* fixed bugs in libstageplugin/p_ranger.cc that prevented the plugin from building
* updated some docs

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2012.1.11


Version 4.1.0
-------------
* many bugfixes
* support for basic dynamics: position models simulate acceleration
  and have a new acceleration control mode.
* visualization options can be loaded from and saved to worldfiles
* API change: new World::Run() methed provides the same interface to
  GUI and non-GUI worlds (by chmp@github)
* saved screenshots are numbered with leading zeros for convenience
  when using movie-making tools (by mani-monaj@github)
* major performance enhancement: position updates now run in parallel
  with sensor updates, using a double-buffer-style alternating pair of
  occupancy grids
* several minor performance enhancements
* much faster debug visualization (occupancy grid and voxel views)
* build scripts are more portable


Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2011.12.28

Version 4.0.1
-------------

- Bugfixes
- more sparing use of memory to support very large worlds (square kms!)

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2010.12.2

Version 4.0.0
-------------

Major new release since worldfile syntax and API have both changed due
to a new unified ranger model. Laser model is now deprecated in favour
of the ranger. This follows a similar change in Player 3, where laser
interface support was deprecated but still in place due to lack of
Stage support. This release fixes that. 

Also includes many bugfixes, a much improved build system and some
performance enhancements and documentation improvements.

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2010.11.25

Version 3.2.2
-------------

Bugfix, performance and cleanup release. This is the fastest Stage
ever for most use cases. 

Externally visible changes

 - removed property database from models. This will break user code
 that depends on it. The rationale for removing it is that it is not
 useful to libstage users, and only to libstageplugin users who used
 it for Player-based IPC. It should be provided by a Player
 driver. Removing this little-used code is a useful clean up.

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2009.10.28


Version 3.2.1
-------------

Bugfix release, contains mainly bugfixes but some performance tweaks.

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2009.10.13

Version 3.2.0
-------------

This minor release fixes many bugs, has some performance improvements
and some significant internal and API changes, including:

* introduced an internal event queue, so that there is no longer any
  atomic world update interval. Each model can have its update
  interval specified individually
* worldfile syntax checking improved: poses and sizes are checked for
  correct vector length
* pkg-config file for libstage now contains correct dependencies,
  making it much easier to build things using libstage
* controllers can now take an argument string from the worldfile and
  command line
* better powerpack model 
* cleaned up namespace quite a bit - controllers and simulators using
  libstage may need some simple tweaks, but the design is cleaner and
  more consistent. 

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2009.9.12

Version 3.1.0
-------------

This minor release includes some major improvements, including:

* Added or reinstated models
	* grippers
  * linear actuator
* Powerpacks models power consumption, charging and transferring
* Models can provide occuapancy grids with Stg::Model::Rasterize()
* WebStage is Stage with WebSim support
* Many bugfixes
* Many performance improvements, including faster raytracing
* Better support for very large worlds
* More example controllers in <stage>/examples/ctrl
* Faster raytracing
* Replaced GLib-2.0 with STL, pthreads, etc.
* Better docs (but still lots to do here)

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2009.7.22

Version 3.0.1
-------------
This version incorporates a number of fixes made since the previous 
major release:

* Player plugin
  * added unit test suite to verify functionality (build instructions
    in libstageplugin/test directory)
  * many bug fixes
  * blobfinder, fiducial, laser, position2d, simulation, sonar, and 
    speech interfaces are now working correctly
* CMake script fixes
  * OpenGL headers located properly
  * FLTK sourced correctly
  * dependency failures should show up before compiling
* fixed bug where fiducial sensor would return duplicate results
* fixed some rendering glitches
* blobfinder now returns blobs in the correct horizontal order
* blobfinder sensor visualization displays in the plane of the screen

Version 3.0.0
-------------
Stage 3.0.0 consists of these components:

 * libstage - a robot simulation C++ library.
 * libstageplugin - a simulation plugin for Player
 * stage - a stand-alone robot simulator

This is a a major new release of Stage. The main new features are:

 * 2.5D models
 * 3D user interface
 * very much faster raytracing than 2.X series
 * plugin code modules attach at run time to any model. Useful for data
   filtering or complete robot controllers without Player (examples
	included)
 * 3D camera model, with color and depth for each pixel
 * first "official" release of the libstage API
 * save/save-as/reload file dialog box
 * improved data visualization options
 * select and drag/rotate multuple robots by shift-clicking

libstageplugin still needs some work - currently it only supports
position2d, laser and sonar interfaces It also uses too much
CPU. Player/Stage users may choose to wait for libstageplugin to
improve before trying Stage-3.0.

Note that your Stage-2.0 world files will probably need to be updated
to work with Stage-3.0. The main difference world file syntax is that
poses and velocities are now specied as [x y z theta] instead of the
old [x y theta]. Sizes are now specifed as [x y z] instead of [x y].

Some useful parts of Stage 2.x have not yet been ported to 3.0,
including

* gripper & puck
* wireless comms
* audio comms
* blinkenights

This is the first release of a lot of new code. It has been used in my
lab for a while now, but there are bound to be bugs and quirks. Please
use the bug tracker and feature request system on Sourceforge to help
us fix and improve Stage. As always, your patches are very welcome.

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca - 2008.7.12

Version 2.0.1
-------------
This is mainly a bugfix and performance-enhancement release. This
release requires Player-2.0.1, released simultaneously.

The only major new feature is the addition of support for Player's
speech interface: speech bubbles show the text being "spoken" by each
robot. The text is rendered using Pango, so non-Roman alphabets are
supported.

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca 2006.3.24


Version 2.0.0
-------------
This is a major new release of Stage, and is intended to replace all
previous versions. It requires Player-2.0.0 or later.

Please report bugs to the tracker and let us know what you do with Stage.

Richard Vaughan (rtv) vaughan@sfu.ca 2006.2.26

### New Features

Significant user-level changes include:

- Stage is now implemented as the C library
  libstage. Using libstage, your programs can include a
  sophisticated robot simulator with a few lines of code. The
  Player plugin libstageplugin is a wrapper for libstage
  that provides simulation services to Player. Player with
  libstageplugin is the Player/Stage system.

- Player clients can draw directly in the Stage window using the
  graphics2d interface. libstage programs can use the internal
  user graphics API.

- Configurable odometry error in position model

- Gripper model that can pick up anything. Any object can be made
  grippable/pushable by setting the the gripper_return property.

- Pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) model.

- More and improved visualizations, including models leaving trails
  over time

- Any object can now have its shape specified by a bitmap file (JPG,
  PNG, etc.).

- Worldfile syntax has changed slightly, so you may need to edit your 
  existing worlds to get them to work. Look at the example worlds in
  (stage src)/worlds to get the idea.

- Worlds can be very large (thousands of meters square).


Version 1.6.1
-------------
This is a bug-fix release that replaces 1.6.0. 

- Fixes several GUI bugs, including the [View/Fill Polygons] menu item.

- Some code clean-up and thread-safety fixes


Version 1.6.0
-------------
This release of Stage is the first after a major rewrite. There are
bound to be bugs and teething troubles, but the Autonomy Lab 
(http://www.cs.sfu.ca/research/groups/autonomy) has been using this 
code for serious work for a few months now and we think it's useful 
and usable.

### Significant changes visible to the user

1. Stage is now a Player plugin, instead of an executable. The key
   benefit of this is that all Player drivers are now available for
   use directly with Stage, including sophisticated drivers like
   AMCL, without needing passthrough drivers.

2. Stage depends on Player 1.6 or newer.

3. Worldfile syntax has a changed, so you need to edit your existing
   worlds to get them to work. Look at the example worlds in <stage
   src>/worlds to get the idea.

4. Any object can now have its shape specified by a bitmap file

5. Several bitmap file formats are supported, using a third-party
   library. Load maps and robot bodies from JPG, PNG, etc. No more PNM
   troubles.

6. Worlds can now be very large (thousands of meters square).

7. Several models are missing from this release - notably the gripper
   and puck. These will be available soon. Meanwhile, enjoy the full
   power of Player with the basic laser, sonar, position, fiducial and
   blobfinder models.

8. Stage no longer depends on libRTK.

9. Some models from previous versions may not yet be available in
   this release (e.g. gripper & puck), but we're working on them. Let us
   know which ones you need.


### Significant changes under the hood

1. The Stage simulation engine is now a library rather than an
   application. The library can be used to write custom robot
   simulations. This is very useful if you need to do synchronous control
   of robots (e.g for perfectly repeatable experiments), or dynamically
   create and destroy robots or other objects. You can't (yet) do this
   though Player. Refer to the libstage reference manual 
   (http://playerstage.sf.net/doc/stage_reference) for the API and 
   developer docs.

2. Stage is now mostly written in C. A simple object-oriented system
   allows one level of inheritance for writing polymorphic model code.

3. The underlying occupancy grid model has changed from a simple
   fixed-size array to a sparse array of (almost) unlimited size
   (implemented with a hash table). To compensate for the performance hit
   of raytracing in the hash table, a three-level multiple-resolution
   approach is used. Raytracing is now usually _much_ faster than in
   Stage-1.3. To get an idea how this works, select the
   View/Debug/Raytrace menu item while a laser or ranger is producing
   data.

4. Most home-rolled data structures have been replaced by glib versions.