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Mixed Reality Simulation Platform (MIXR)

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Enabling the Construction of Robust, Scalable, Virtual and Constructive, Stand-alone and Distributed Mixed Reality Applications

The Mixed Reality Simulation Platform (MIXR), or simply, the Mixer Platform, is a multi-platform simulation platform designed to help simulation engineers and software developers rapidly prototype and build robust, scalable, virtual and constructive, and stand-alone and distributed simulation applications. It has been used extensively to build applications that demand deterministic real-time performance. This includes applications used to support human factor studies, operator training, or the development of complete distributed virtual simulation systems. The Mixer Platform has also been used to build stand-alone and distributed constructive applications oriented at system performance analysis.

MIXR is a mature software simulation platform that has been in active development for over a decade. The framework includes interoperability interfaces to support the development of distributed applications, as it includes interfaces that support the Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocol. Numerous DIS compliant distributed simulation applications have been built using this framework as the foundation.

The platform is described in the book titled “Design & Construction of Virtual and Constructive Simulations Using OpenEaagles” (OpenEaagles was its previous name). This is one of the first modeling and simulation books published that focuses on the construction techniques of virtual and constructive performance-oriented high fidelity simulations.

Project News

Re-Engaged Development

Tuesday, June 30, 2020: Re-engaging on the continued development of this project again. Time availability has been in short supply the past year, but now, for a variety of reasons, my focus has turned back to this project.

Next MIXR Release

Monday, June 10, 2019: Work to release the next version is in progress; it will be directly supported for Visual Studio 2017 (x32) and Visual Studio 2019 (x64) with supplied compiled dependency libraries. It (as always) can be compiled and used within the Linux ecosystem. Much work has already been accomplished to improve the configuration of inputs associated with number values with numbers associated with a particular unit (i.e., quantities).

Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 Released

Thursday, April 4, 2019: Visual Studio 2019 is now available, testing with MIXR begins!

Updates to 3rd Party Source Package

Sunday, December 23, 2018: Several updates were made to this package; specifically, the build script, documentation (i.e., README), and dependencies (ZeroMQ, bison, and OpenSceneGraph). It is now included as part of the 18.01 release. Work has begun on the next set of improvements, slated for release early next year.

MIXR Event / Presentation at Worldcomp 2018

Monday, July 29, 2018: MIXR presentation at Worldcomp 2018 happening tomorrow.

MIXR Event / Users Group July 2018 - Details!

Tuesday, January 30, 2018: This is the official call for papers on topics related to Military and Defense Modeling and Simulation. We encourage paper submissions concerning MIXR and MIXR-based applications.

MIXR Platform v18.01 Released

Thursday, January 04, 2018: This release includes a number of improvements in terms of overall platform organization and implementation.

Two libraries have been significantly revised to simplify I/O linkage definition and host Image Generator interface specification (CIGI in particular). The included changelog documents the list of improvements, including rationale. We have also bundled, renamed and improved the SimpleOTW visual application as an example image generator within the 'examples' package - it is now called mainIgViewer.

This release is fully compatible with both Windows and Linux and can be compiled with Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and the latest versions of GCC. It is also compatible with CentOS 7.

MIXR Event / Users Group July 2018!

Friday, November 17, 2017: There is a tentative plan to organize a session within the WorldComp 2018 conference for 'mixed reality simulations' - in the military, they are often referred to as 'distributed virtual simulations' or even Live, Virtual, Constructive (LVC) simulations due to the way they are assembled. The planned conference session is open to all the above!

The conference will be held next July at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. The plan includes a formal session with paper presentations on these simulation types, including methodologies, tools, and technologies to support training, test, human factors research, and exploratory analysis.

In conjunction with the formal session, we are looking to set aside time for MIXR specific interactions including tutorials, general information sharing, Q&A, and socializing, etc. In order to gauge the level of interest, please contact me and/or reply in the MIXR forum.

CentOS 7.4.x - GCC 4.8.5

Friday, November 17, 2017: MIXR has been tested with CentOS 7.4 which includes GCC 4.8.5; everything compiles, links and executes as expected. We strive to maintain compatibility with this important Linux distribution as it's often accepted as an approved operating system to be used within certain facilities and/or operating environments.

Fedora 27 - GCC 7.2.1 and Ubuntu 17.10 - GCC 7.2.0

Thursday, November 16, 2017: MIXR has been tested with Fedora 27 and Ubuntu 17.10, which includes GCC 7.2.1 and 7.2.0 compilers, respectively, by default; everything compiles, links and executes as expected.

Winter Simulation Conference

Saturday, November 04, 2017: If you are attending the Winter Simulation Conference 2017, be sure to attend the military keynote speech on Monday, 4 December at 10 am. The title of the talk is “Military Simulation: A Ubiquitous Future” – it is oriented at defining the term “Mixed Reality” in the context of military simulation and highlights opportunities to leverage it for serious concerns, such as training, test support and exploratory analysis.

MIXR Example Data and 3rd-Party Library Binaries for Visual Studio

Thursday, September 28, 2017: The next release of MIXR is currently in the works. As part of this next release, a few high-level, organizational aspects will change as follows:

• Support for Visual Studio 2013 is being dropped - all current efforts concerning compilation with Visual Studio are focused on using 2015 and 2017. Making this move allows us to tap more available Modern C++ features and concepts throughout the code base. Frankly, in the fast-moving world of C++, Visual Studio 2013 is starting to look and feel a bit dated. Newer C++ features and capabilities used within MIXR are already well-supported by GCC and Clang compiler suites, so this has no impact or effect on Linux users.

• Example data files that have been included as part of the examples package have been extracted, separated and now managed outside of the GitHub hosted repository - they will become part of a new separate 'mixr-data' package (distributed as a zip or tar-zip file). This change greatly lightens the burden on the git ecosystem and repository and eliminates meaningless revision control of binary files that tend to be rather large. As a result of this change, new opportunities have presented themselves – for example, this new MIXR package will include a richer set of data including the last publicly available DAFIF release, the Vector Map (VMap) Level 0 data set (VMAP0), and a TerraPage formatted visual database of the Portland, OR area.

• The MIXR 3rd-party package which contains all MIXR library dependencies is also being updated in a few ways. First, all Visual Studio 2013 binaries have been removed, and second, all the OpenSceneGraph core binary libraries plus the TerraPage plug-in loader for Visual 2015 and 2017 has been added. As with the MIXR data, this package will be now be managed outside of git to avoid meaningless tracking of large binary files.

Making these adjustments has facilitated improvements in the code base, and helped ease the creation of more visually interesting examples. For instance, the old 'SimpleOTW' example has been revamped, updated and improved to serve as a simple image generator example for MIXR-based simulations.

Poll! Removal of serialize() Method from Class Definitions?

Monday, August 07, 2017: All MIXR classes include a method called serialize() that can be used to write and save object state data associated with input configuration parameters (i.e., slots). Using this feature, in theory, a subset of state data for each created object within an executing simulation application could be recorded and used to reset or restart an application at any given time with a degree of precision - a 'checkpoint' of sorts.

While this feature is interesting and potentially very useful in certain situations, it does require additional effort from a developer to understand its role and fully define serialization behavior for each and every class. This includes the semantics of what is intended by a 'reset' or 'restart' - which is not always entirely clear, as it often depends on the purpose. Because of this, it is believed that many developers simply don't define anything (i.e., leave the method empty) or redefine it (if already defined) to do what they want.

Given this situation and the understanding that no one is even using this feature, we are considering removing this aspect of object functionality from the code base to reduce code size and overall complexity.

This post solicits feedback from the community on this topic. If you feel strongly about retaining this feature, please send an email or post a comment on the forum. If we don't hear anything within a reasonable amount of time, this method (and capability) will most likely be removed in favor of simplicity.

Fedora 26 - GCC 7.1.1

Saturday, July 29, 2017: MIXR was just tested with Fedora 26, which includes GCC 7.1.1 compiler; everything works without issue, as expected. The Linux install notes page has been updated to reflect Fedora's move to 'dnf' to install packages.

MIXR Platform v17.06c Released

Wednesday, June 28, 2017: This release presents the successor to the OpenEaagles project called the Mixed Reality Simulation Platform (MIXR). To facilitate the transition from OpenEaagles to MIXR, no API or functional changes have been made from the previous OpenEaagles release (v17.06a); all changes are associated with the renaming of project artifacts. This includes the name of include file paths (e.g., #include “mixr/base/Object.hpp' as opposed to #include “openeaagles/base/Object.hpp”), namespace (i.e., 'namespace mixr' as opposed to 'namespace oe'), and compiled libraries (e.g., 'mixr_base' as opposed to 'oe_base').

The mixer platform provides lots of support for building highly interactive (real-time) simulation applications, that often include graphics and interoperability interfaces. Given that MIXR is not oriented at gaming (it's not a game engine!), but oriented to support more serious concerns, we felt it appropriate to align project name with the domain for which it offers strong support (i.e., mixed reality applications).

We use the term 'platform' as opposed to 'framework' to indicate our goal of expanding (or widen) the scope of applications that can be created. A new website is being developed.

OE v17.06a Released

Thursday, June 1, 2017: This release includes numerous relatively minor documentation improvements throughout the framework - no API functionality or changes have been made. This 'a' version does fix a problem with one of the examples.

OE v17.04 Released

Wednesday, April 4, 2017: This release includes a substantial number of updates and improvements. A major theme is the use of modern C++ paradigms and concepts (i.e., C++11/14/17) in conjunction with more use of standard library capabilities. The refactoring of existing code to embrace and leverage these concepts available in current compilers (e.g., Visual Studio 2013, 2015, 2017, GCC, Clang, etc.) is proving beneficial in many ways. Not only is the number of lines of code shrinking, but so-called RAII concepts are beginning to surface, and the general understandability of what exists, how it works, and how it's initialized is more accessible. In a nutshell, we are striving to make the package more flexible and capable by removing complexity rather than by exposing new functionality.

Consistent with this goal is the effort to more clearly separate (i.e., divorce) simulation 'models' (i.e., classes/objects that define aspects of a system or world to be simulated), from the mechanics of their execution. This move has been partially motivated by Domain Driven Design concepts and is reshaping the framework in ways to make it more extensible and versatile. Soon it could be argued that OpenEaagles is not just a framework, but a fairly comprehensive platform to build an even wider range of simulation applications.

This release includes explicit support for Visual Studio 2013, 2015 and 2017 as well as improved 3rd party package build scripts for Linux-based GCC and Clang compilers. OpenEaagles is regularly compiled and used with Ubuntu and RedHat-based Linux distributions (Xubuntu 16.10/GCC 6.2.0 and CentOS 7.3/GCC 4.8 specifically).

Update: OE version 17.04 has been tested with Xubuntu 17.04/GCC 6.3.0 and much older Linux Mint 15/GCC 4.7.3 without issue. In other words, we have been compiling, building and running examples using a wide variety of compilers to ensure no rough edges in the software or built system exist.

OE v16.11 Released

Friday, November 11, 2016: This release fixes a bug from the previous release and substantially improves the included Qt-based simulation example. We also improved the build script included with 3rd party source code to streamline compilation on CentOS 7 Linux distributions.

OE v16.10a Released

Sunday, October 23, 2016: Corrected a bug related to an “unused” macro unintentionally being used in a way not intended; GCC 6.20 compiler picked up on conflict and flagged code as in error (GCC 6.20 is installed by default with the Ubuntu 16.10 release). Lesson learned - macros stink and can be dangerous. Modern C++ compilers in general not only generate errors for C++ code that does not conform to the standard or syntactically make sense, but they also are starting to generate warnings if code quality or clarity of purpose is in question - this is a good thing.

OE v16.10 Released

Monday, October 17, 2016: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. This release includes a few code corrections and adjustments to improve consistency. The major change for this release includes the renaming of include file extensions from *.h to *.hpp. This was done to make explicit the nature of file contents – namely, C++ declarations and/or template code. The practice of clearly differentiating C from C++ is not always done but is considered good practice within the community as it yields clarity of file purpose and other benefits. One particular benefit to moving this direction concerns code compilation using precompiled headers (e.g., compiling a *.h file to either *.pch or *.gch to improve performance) - if C++ code is found in a *.h file, a warning often results.

OE v16.06 Released

Wednesday, June 1, 2016: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. This release includes a considerable amount of work poured into the framework over the past year. See included changelog for details. This release starts a steady transition to leveraging modern C++11 capabilities. It is fully supported by the Visual Studio 2013 and 2015 compilers, as well as modern versions of GCC and Clang.

New Release in the Works

Wednesday, March 23, 2016: Expect a new release soon. A considerable amount of work has been in progress these past few months. Planned support includes Visual Studio 2015.

OE v15.07 Released

Saturday, July 11, 2015: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted.

Issues Addressed Leveraging Coverity

Friday, June 19, 2015: Leveraging Coverity's static analyzer results, we have reduced 'defect density' statistic for the entire OpenEaagles framework to only 0.12. To put this number in context, Linux, the gold standard in terms of quality benchmarks has a defect density of only 0.59 and typical proprietary code measures in about 0.68.

Of the initial 175 defects identified by Coverity, 139 have been addressed. It should be stated that no particular issue raised significant concerns, but stomping out potential issues is both good practice and yields higher quality software.

Soon, we will be posting a new release which captures these improvements.

Scanning Framework with Coverity

Friday, May 15, 2015: We have started using Coverity's online scan static analysis tool as another quality check on the framework source code. The posted OpenEaagles project with analysis results at Coverity's website can be found here.

Coverity's web interface to analysis results is impressive and provides useful meaningful information with few apparent false negatives (a common problem with static code analysis tools). Generally speaking, the framework codebase is quite clean - but it did reveal a few issues to address before next release.

C++11 'nullptr' and 'override' Progress

Friday, May 15, 2015: After having spent a considerable amount of time manually working and nearly completing this effort, we come to discover clang's automated modernizer tool. Clang is a compiling environment/system, and the modernizer is a supporting tool that can be used to convert, transform or migrate existing C++ code to use newer, modern programming features introduced in C++11. For example, the intelligent replacement of 0's or NULL's with 'nullptr' and the discovery of where the context keyword 'override' can be used are two such transformations. Specifically, the modernizer locates where to apply particular transformations and applies hem as directed.

The progress status for this effort is 100% complete for the framework, and about 70% for the examples. Having discovered this tool, the remaining work should happen quickly. All work is posted in GitHub repo.

Adopting C++11 'nullptr'

Saturday, April 11, 2015: We have started the process of adopting C++11's nullptr throughout the framework. The introduction of this literal (of type std::nullptr_t) finally once and for all unambiguously defines a pointer as pointing at nothing. Previously, developers indicated this meaning by setting pointers to either the macro NULL (macros are bad!) or simply the integer value 0 (as done throughout openeaagles). Like override leveraging this literal improves code documentation and also helps prevent some interesting side efforts from occurring.

Starting with Visual Studio 2010, nullptr is fully supported - the GCC and clang toolchains have supported it for some time. As with override adopting it allows us to continue to step forward by simultaneously improving code quality and documentation without severely impacting legacy compiler support.

This effort is underway within the git repo on GitHub and will take some time - locating all the instances where nullptr should be used requires careful examination of each class - which in many ways provides the motivation and clear rationale to adopt it in the first place.

Note: The use of nullptr does not impact the compatibility of this software or affect applications built using it. It simply improves the quality of the underlying code-base.

Adopting C++11 'override' Context Keyword

Friday, April 10, 2015: We have embraced the C++11 defined context sensitive keyword override throughout the framework. Using override throughout the framework serves two important purposes; 1) it adds clarity and serves as a form of documentation to developers - by using it, overridden subclass methods are clearly distinguished from newly defined ones, and 2) it informs the compiler as to developer intent - meaning, it marks the method(s) that are intended to be overrides and not intended to define new ones that possibly inadvertently shadow base methods.

Starting with Visual Studio 2010, override is fully supported - the GCC and clang toolchains have supported it for some time. Adopting it allows us to continue to step forward by simultaneously improving code quality and documentation without severely impacting legacy compiler support.

This effort has been completed in the git master branch on GitHub. Although somewhat of a herculean effort, the process of completing this was simplified considerably by leveraging Eclipse's C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT) plugin. The current version of CDT visually indicates overridden class methods in the editor, which aided in properly identifying and marking them.

Note: The use of override does not impact the compatibility of this software or affect applications built using it. It simply improves the quality of the underlying code-base.

Military Grid Reference System Transformations

Thursday, February 5, 2015: Thanks to a nice contribution, we are adding support for the Military Grid Reference System. New capabilities will be in git repo within the next few days and included in next OE release.

Clang++ / LLVM Compiler Supported

Tuesday, February 3, 2015: Framework and examples compile cleanly with Clang / LLVM compiling infrastructure. Clang++ did highlight a few virtual methods inadvertently being hidden in subclasses due to name scoping that will be corrected shortly.

Adopting CMake Build System

Tuesday, December 16, 2014: We hope to fully adopt cmake as our build system for the next release of the framework. Moving to cmake provides several advantages including support for the most recent versions of Visual Studio, more visible user selectable compiling options, and it's a valuable tool to implement continuous integration concepts.

FYI: Continuous integration (CI) is a software engineering practice in which isolated changes are immediately tested and reported on when they are added to a larger code base. The goal is to provide rapid feedback so that if a defect is introduced into the code base, it can be identified and corrected as soon as possible.

Fedora 21, GCC 4.9.x and More...

Monday, December 15, 2014: Just compiled the oe framework using GCC 4.9.x which is part of Fedora 21 Linux - everything checks out ok. As a result, the 'Linux Notes' page has been updated to include more Fedora or 'yum'-based installation instructions.

We plan to support the Clang system and associated toolchain in the future.

FAQ Moved to Google Groups Forum

Monday, October 27, 2014: The frequently asked questions (FAQ) page on the website has been reformatted into individual forum topics. This ensures that answers to these questions are found along with other forum searches.

Google Group Forum Established

Thursday, October 16, 2014: A new Google Groups forum for OpenEaagles has just been established. Please post comments and/or questions at this new location. The old forum can still be searched and will be available in a 'read-only' mode until this transition is complete.

OE v14.09 Released

Monday, September 08, 2014: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. In this release, several bugs have been squashed (due to user feedback) and much effort has gone into improving the code base itself by revising some existing code to adhere to more stringent coding standards.

Prepping Next Release Continues...

Friday, July 19, 2014: We are planning on adding behavior tree modeling capability to the framework in this release followed by the inclusion of a substantial amount of work contributed by the Command and Control Laboratory at the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA) in Brazil (in the next release). ITA has extended some of the existing behavior modeling capabilities of the framework by providing interfaces to the Lua scripting language, the SOAR production system-based cognitive architecture and the CLIPS expert system.

Prepping Next Release

Wednesday, May 28, 2014: The next release of OpenEaagles is due out soon. In this release, a few bugs have been squashed (due to Forum feedback) and much effort has gone into improving the code base itself by revising some existing code to adhere to more stringent coding standards. Expect a new release to be posted within the next few weeks. As always, progress can be followed on GitHub here.

OE v14.01 Released

Friday, January 10, 2014: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. Much work has gone into the framework in several areas including the addition of a small, simple, reconfigurable 4 degrees of freedom aerodynamic model (i.e., perfect for autonomous control), new Factory classes for all of the libraries, a number of bug fixes, improved code formatting and documentation, and improved organization and naming of framework examples. This release also includes an experimental ZeroMQ-based network handler with the examples.

Visual Studio 2013

Thursday, January 9, 2014: OpenEaagles compiles cleanly with Visual Studio 2013, but, not all of 3rd party packages do, such as Google Protocol Buffers version 2.5.0. As soon as all 3rd party packages compile cleanly with VS 2013, an update of OpenEaagles3rdParty libraries will be posted.

Prepping Next Release

Wednesday, December 4, 2013: The next release of OpenEaagles is due out soon. As always, much work has gone into the framework in several areas including the addition of a small, simple, reconfigurable 4 degrees of freedom aerodynamic model (i.e., perfect for autonomous control), a number of minor bug fixes, improved code formatting and documentation, and improved organization and naming of framework examples. Also planned is the inclusion of an experimental ZeroMQ-based network handler. This opens the door to a wide range of interesting networking capabilities. Progress can be followed on GitHub here.

OE v13.07 Released

Sunday, July 07, 2013: This release includes numerous improvements, support for Visual Studio 2012, and an updated vehicle interface class for a more recent version of JSBSim. Almost all of the 3rd party packages have also been updated.

OE v13.01 Released

Tuesday, January 08, 2013: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted.

Linux Notes Updated

Saturday, December 22, 2012: Updated the Linux installation notes page for Fedora and Ubuntu distributions.

OE v12.09 Released

Saturday, September 02, 2012: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. This new version includes mostly bug fixes.

OE v12.07 Released

Thursday, July 26, 2012: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. This new version includes a new data recording package that leverages Google's protocol buffers technology for efficiently storing simulation data in a binary format. Also included is a new behavioral modeling framework for developing intelligent agents.

OE v12.03 Released

Tuesday, March 06, 2012: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted.

OE v12.01 Released

Monday, January 23, 2012: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted.

OE v11.11 Released

Sunday, November 27, 2011: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted.

OE Developmental Version Posted

Wednesday, November 02, 2011: The latest developmental version posted. Includes updates to Fox and FLTK GUI examples, some Makefile improvements for Linux, a more consistent set of inputs across several examples to demonstrate “out-of-the-box” DIS interoperability across simulations (see mainSim1, mainSim2, mainSim3, and mainSim4).

OE v11.10 Released

Monday, October 24, 2011: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. This update includes 64-bit platform compatibility.

OE v11.09a Released

Monday, September 26, 2011: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. This update to v11.09 ensures player position (as calculated within a flat earth reference frame) does not exceed 180 degrees longitude (east or west).

OE v11.09 Released

Friday, September 17, 2011: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted.

OE v11.08 Released

Friday, August 27, 2011: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted.

OE Developmental Version Posted

Wednesday, August 17, 2011: New developmental version posted. Functionality has been added to the OpenGL-based Display class so that rendered graphics can be saved as a bitmap file. For a demonstration of capability, open and execute the “mainw” example - press the “f” key. A file called “test.bmp” will be saved.

OE Developmental Version Posted

Friday, August 05, 2011: New developmental version posted. The focus is on existing and new classes for navigation (Nav), predefined and user-defined earth models (EarthModel) and dead reckoning algorithms (NavDR).

OE Developmental Version Posted

Saturday, July 23, 2011: New developmental version posted. The most visible aspect of this version is a new OpenEaagles “glut” library that contains GLUT-specific graphics classes. This change promotes a cleaner separation of GLUT functionality from the more general OpenGL-based graphics toolkit. Also included in this release are two new applications that demonstrate how to display OE-based graphics using Fox and FLTK GUI toolkits.

OE v11.07 Released

Thursday, July 14, 2011: The latest stable version of OpenEaagles posted. Well tested with Visual Studio 2008 and 2010, Fedora 15 and Ubuntu 11.04. Package includes a host of improvements (see included changelog) and updated 32-bit 3rd party libraries for Visual Studio. This package also includes a current version of JSBSim.

OE Developmental Version Posted

Wednesday, June 01, 2011: New developmental version posted.

Linux Installation Notes

Sunday, April 24, 2011: The Linux Notes section has been significantly updated to provide instructions for installing OpenEaagles on Fedora and Ubuntu systems.

Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack #1 Released

Friday, March 18, 2011: Microsoft just released service pack #1 for Visual Studio 2010. Therefore, we will recompile all 3rd party libraries with this service pack installed. Expect a new developmental version to be posted shortly with an updated set of 3rd party libraries.

OE Developmental Version Posted

Thursday, March 17, 2011: New developmental version posted. Several refinements can be seen, one is support for Visual Studio 2010 and MinGW compilers. This version being posted is most definitely being refined in several areas especially for MinGW support - it's being posted for those interested in seeing what's in the works.

Prepping Next Release

Saturday, February 26, 2011: The next release of OpenEaagles is due out soon. Much work has gone into the framework in several areas, including an improved IR modeling environment, support for Visual Studio 2010, support for MinGW (this include Code::Blocks and CodeLite IDE support), a better set of GUI examples, etc. Expect a new developmental version to be posted soon.

New HOTAS's

Tuesday, November 23, 2010: Got a chance to look, touch and mess around with the Thustmaster HOTAS Warthog and the Saitek PRO Flight X-65F Combat Control System today - initial impression “Wow!” - very nice sets of hardware for the money. We will ensure that configuration (input) files for OE examples are set up to support both.

Fedora 14 and Ubuntu 10.10

Saturday, November 06, 2010: A few changes to the Linux Makefiles have been made to ensure all examples compile cleanly with Ubuntu 10.10. A minor change to tutorial #5 is also included to illustrate how constructed objects can validate their data. This feature is leveraged by the OE parser to ensure input files are valid. The developmental version as of today reflects these changes and cleanly compiles with both Fedora 14 and Ubuntu 10.10.

OE Developmental Version Posted

Sunday, October 31, 2010: Latest developmental version of OpenEaagles posted. This version adds support for directed energy modeling and includes refinements in the IR modeling environment. The principal area of development is the refinement of the IR model environment with improved abstractions for both IR signature and IR atmosphere representation.

OE v10.04 Released

Monday, April 19, 2010: Latest version of OpenEaagles posted. This version principally updates the previous stable by correcting minor inconsistencies and use of the LCreal datatype across the framework. Now LCreal can be defined as either a single (float) or double (double) datatype for math operations. Other updates include the addition of user method which allows users to process PDUs that are not handled by the default PDU handlers.

OE v10.02c Released

Friday, March 13, 2010: Fixed a bug in the logger classes which prevented it from streaming simulation state data to a file. Also fixed time of flight calculation in the Weapon class.

OE v10.02b Released

Wednesday, March 3, 2010: Fixed a flag set in the Linux makedef file to correctly specify which version of FTGL is installed on a Linux box. Added more printed I/O diagnostic information for a joystick device installed on a Linux box. See downloads page.

OE v10.02a Released

Monday, March 1, 2010: Two issues addressed with this posting: 1) The integration of geodetic altitude has been fixed and 2) additional search paths to locate a Linux joystick device - Fedora 12 moved the default path. See downloads page.

OE v10.02 3rd Party Package Fix

Tuesday, Feb 23, 2010: After 10.02 was posted a problem was found with the FTGL library supplied in 3rd Party dependency package. The problem is associated with a Visual Studio project setting called “Whole Program Optimization”. Without getting into a long discussion as to what it does and all of the wonderful advantages it offers in optimizing code across modules, the lesson learned is - leave the default setting alone!

A new version of the 3rd Party package has been posted.

OE v10.02 Released

Sunday, Feb 21, 2010: Latest version of OpenEaagles posted. See downloads page.

OE Developmental Version Posted

Friday, Jan 15, 2010: A new developmental version of OE has been posted. We are getting ready to cut the next stable release.

OE v9.07b Released

Thursday, Sept 19, 2009: Updates to the latest stable version of OpenEaagles and tutorials now available. Click on the Downloads page.

OE v9.07 Released

Friday, July 03, 2009: Latest version of OpenEaagles now posted on Sourceforge.

JSBSim v1.0RC2 Update

Tuesday, June 16, 2009: Just after posting support for RC1, RC2 was released; OpenEaagles has been updated as a result. Only the 3rd party and examples files needed to change. Also, some minor compiling issues with the latest version of GGC included with Fedora 11 have been corrected.

JSBSim v1.0RC1 Support Added

Sunday, June 14, 2009: Latest developmental copy of the framework now includes support for JSBSim v1.0RC1. It is posted on Downloads page.

OE Developmental Version Updated

Friday, May 01, 2009: Latest developmental version of the framework has been posted on the Downloads page.

CIGI Class Library Support

Monday, March 09, 2009: Latest version of OpenEaagles in development now includes support for CIGI Class Library (CL).

OE Development Area Created

Saturday, February 21, 2009: The latest version of OpenEaagles in development is now posted on the Download page. Stable releases will continue to be posted to Sourceforge.

Version Numbering Scheme Changed

Monday, January 05, 2009: After some discussion recently held between the core team and forum members, we decided to change the version numbering scheme used for OpenEaagles. This new scheme will follow the “Year.Month” style, also known as the “Ubuntu version scheme”.

Past versions using the older “Year_MonthDay” (for example 2008_1025) style have been updated throughout the website for the sake of consistency.

I/ITSEC 2008 Tutorial Slides

Monday, December 08, 2008: The slides used in the “Design & Implementation of Virtual Simulations” tutorial session at I/ITSEC have been posted. They can be found on the Documentation page.

I/ITSEC 2008 News

Tuesday, November 26, 2008: We will be presenting a tutorial session titled “Design & Implementation of Virtual Simulations” at I/ITSEC this year. The session will be held on Monday, December 1 from 1030-1200 Room 414 CD. The tutorial will present a number of open-source projects such as the Virtual Terrain Project, SubrScene Image Generation Solution (IGS), CIGI, the poRTIco project, JSBSim and of course OpenEaagles. The focus is on building a virtual simulation leveraging these projects.

As a demonstration, a completely open-source virtual simulation system based on all these projects can be found at the Calytrix booth #2647. An example OpenEaagles-based application will be connected into a distributed environment that includes Microsoft ESP Visual Simulation Platform, BreakAway's mosbe, Calytrix's Combat Net Radio, VBS2, eSim Games Steel Beasts and OneSAF.

OE v8.10 Released

Saturday, October 04, 2008: Lots of details addressed in this version including our obsession with eliminating as many Visual Studio warnings as possible. The naming convention of input files has been changed. Files named with an extension of ”.d“ have been changed to ”.epp“ to indicate it's an input file used in the process of building a final description. Final loadable input files previously named with an extension of ”.dd“ has been changed to ”.edl“. EDL stands for Eaagles Description Language.

GUI Interface Examples Update

Saturday, October 04, 2008: New versions of all the GUI example packages which includes FOX, both versions of FLTK and wxWidgets has been uploaded. They can be found on the GUI Support page.

GUI Interface Examples

Saturday, July 19, 2008: GUI examples and packages for FOX, FLTK (both versions) and wxWidgets are now available off the GUI Support page. All packages can be compiled for Windows and Linux. They demonstrate how to leverage these popular x-platform GUI frameworks with OpenEaagles simulation and graphics capabilities.

OE v8.06 Released

Wednesday, June 25, 2008: A new version which rolls up all fixes found to date and breaks out the FOX, FLTK and wxWidgets GUI interface classes into their own respective packages has been posted. Fixes include support for 64-bit Linux, GCC 4.3 compilers and better adherence to coding standards in a few areas. GUI examples and packages will be available for download directly from the new GUI Support page soon. Starting with this version we have transitioned to the standard GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) to ensure maximum flexibility with code used in both open and commercial settings. See License page for additional details.

OE v8.03 Released

Sunday, March 30, 2008: A new version has been posted on Sourceforge. This version rolls up all fixes found to date and a few minor enhancements with regard to units (such as Angles, etc) and font handling. This version also includes is a terrain reader for the NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital topographic data. See the NASA site for additional details.

PC Working Group Conference 2008

Thursday, March 27, 2008: A 30 minutes briefing on OpenEaagles will be presented at the PC Working Group Conference in Las Vegas on April 9th.

Forum Access a Little Slow

Tuesday, March 11, 2008: Access to the forum is a little on the slow side. I've pinged the web hosting service and they know about the problem. It works, you just have to be patient. Hopefully, it will be fixed soon.

AIAA Newsletter Article

Saturday, February 2, 2008: An article about OpenEaagles can be found in the January 2008 issue of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Modeling and Simulation newsletter. The newsletter can be found on the documentation page.

Forum Now Open

Thursday, January 3, 2008: A forum for the OpenEaagles project has been established. It can be accessed by clicking on the Forum link on the sidebar. Announcement, updates, fixes, and questions about the code base will be provided in the forum. Check it out!

Virtual and Constructive Simulations Book Now Available

Wednesday, December 19, 2007: The book titled “Designing & Implementing Virtual and Constructive Simulations Using OpenEaagles” is now available for purchase both in paperback or hardcover.

SimpleOtw Updated

Monday, December 10, 2007: The simple out-the-window heads-up display application “SimpleOtw” has been updated. The application utilizes a few components from OpenEaagles but primarily leverages OpenSceneGraph to draw the 3D graphics. It is now available on Sourceforge. The package now includes all third-party libraries “SimpleOtw3rdParty” from OpenSceneGraph to link against, and required Dlls to run. Everything was compiled using Visual C++ 2005 Express Service Pack 1.

OE v7.12 Released

Monday, December 10, 2007: A new version has been posted on Sourceforge. This is the one referenced by the book titled “Designing & Implementing Virtual and Constructive Simulations Using OpenEaagles.” When compared to previous versions you will notice that we have specifically separated C++ source code implementation files (.cpp) from header files (.h). This facilitates the installation of header and library files in Linux (i.e. “make install”). Also of note is the removal of the “Lc” prefix in front of class names in the basic and basicGL libraries. Since OpenEaagles makes extensive use of namespaces, the legacy prefix is no longer needed. This has been compiled with Visual C++ 2005 Express Service Pack 1 and Fedora 8. Note: Visual C++ 2005 Express Service Pack #1 is an important service pack. All of the third-party libraries included in OpenEaagles3rdParty have been compiled using this version.

This is a good solid version and should serve as a nice baseline for some anticipated updates. OpenEaagles contains plenty of power and punch to build a wide variety of virtual and constructive simulation systems. The next few releases will focus on improving installation and integration issues to the point where it is seamless.

I/ITSEC 2007 News

Sunday, December 02, 2007: I/ITSEC 2007 was a great success this year for OpenEaagles. Special thanks to the CACI folks for providing us some booth space for an attractive display. The first printed copies of “Designing & Implementing Virtual and Constructive Simulations Using OpenEaagles” arrived via UPS the first day of the show. Talk about cutting it close! By the end of the show, we had sold out and started taking advance orders. Shortly we will be posting a new OpenEaagles version that compliments the book examples.

I/ITSEC 2007 News

Friday, November 16, 2007: Stop by and see the variety of applications that can be built utilizing the OpenEaagles framework at I/ITSEC this year (Nov 26-29). Knowledgeable folks will be available to answer questions and development activities. We will also have copies of the new book titled “Designing & Implementing Virtual and Constructive Simulations Using OpenEaagles” on display (see below). We will be located in the CACI booth # 2731.

Fedora 8 Released, Linux Notes Updated

Monday, November 12, 2007: The Linux Notes page has been updated. It now includes installation notes for the prerequisite FTGL, freetype and freeglut graphics libraries in order to build OpenEaagles. It also contains installation and compilation instructions for the CIGI interface and notes on the OpenEaagles GUI interface classes.

Hot Off the Press, Almost

Thursday, November 8, 2007: A new book focused on developing virtual and constructive simulations is in the process of being published by The Wright State Research Institute. It is titled the “Design & Construction of Virtual and Constructive Simulations Using OpenEaagles.” This 280-page book consists of eight chapters as follows: 1) Introduction, 2) Background on Modeling and Simulation, 3) Basic Data Types & Classes, 4) Crafting Simulation, 5) Constructive Simulation, 6) Input Language, 7) Developing Compliant Simulations and 8) Developing Virtual Simulations. To our knowledge, this is the first hands-on book to cover the design and implementation of both virtual and construction simulation applications. The book will come with example applications based off of the upcoming OpenEaagles version.

Human Behavior Modeling

Thursday, August 9, 2007: The paper titled “An Approach To Human Behavior Modeling In An Air Force Simulation” published at the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference has been added to the documentation page. It presents a multi-level approach to incorporating more realistic human behavior models into simulations. The intelligent agents are hosted and leverage the OpenEaagles framework.

SubrScene Image Generator Now Available

Tuesday, July 17, 2007: The SubrScene visualization toolkit has been released into the open-source world. SubrScene has been used extensively as the primary image generator (IG) system for OpenEaagles-based applications. This includes driving single or multiple video displays (channels) and domes. A typical configuration for assembling an interactive virtual simulator consists of the execution of an OpenEaagles-based application (the simulation), coupled with an IG system, like SubrScene to drive scenegraph based visuals, such as heads-up displays. A good mix is to utilize OpenEaagles graphics capabilities to draw interactive operator displays such as heads-down devices with its rich set of instruments while tapping into SubrScene's scenegraph capabilities to draw complex 3D visuals. With SubrScene's SDK, scenegraph capabilities can be embedded into OpenEaagles-based operator displays.

Linux Notes for Fedora 7 Added

Monday, July 16, 2007: A Linux notes page has been added to the site that contains a lot of useful installation tips when working with Fedora 7.

Fedora Thread Issue Fixed

Monday, July 2, 2007: The threading issue with Linux has been fixed. Just download this new version of the Station class and replace it in the simulation directory. It will be incorporated into the next version.

Fedora Thread Issue

Thursday, June 14, 2007: It has been discovered that the OpenEaagles “network” thread is not running correctly with either Fedora Core 6 or the latest Fedora 7. We believe it has to do with how the new thread library is now implemented in Linux. A fix is in the works.

Compatible with Windows Vista

Friday, May 4, 2007: OpenEaagles has been tested with Visual C++ 2005 Express and Windows Vista. Everything checks out ok. Note: In order to use Visual C++ 2005 Express with Vista a service pack from Microsoft is required.

PC Working Group Conference 2007

Tuesday, April 10, 2007: A 30 minutes briefing on OpenEaagles will be presented at the PC Working Group Conference in Las Vegas on April 19th.

ThrustMaster HOTAS Cougar Profile Loader for Linux Posted

Sunday, February 4, 2007: The Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar is a replica U.S. Air Force F-16 block 52 controller (stick and throttle). A Windows-only Control Panel is supplied with the Cougar to configure various options such as the use of the Microstick axes. Normally the Microstick cannot be read from Linux because it cannot be configured from Linux (no Control Panel exists to set them!). This released Linux application can read profile files (that yes, have been created with the Windows Control Panel) and configure the Cougar so that Linux applications can read the Microstick. This enables the high quality, reasonably priced HOTAS Cougar to be used more effectively with flight simulation applications. See the Hotas Cougar page for more information.

Projects Page Established

Thursday, January 18, 2007: With such an emphasis on frameworks, you might think we forgot about the projects and applications based upon OpenEaagles. Well, we didn't, check out the new Projects page for an ever-growing list of interesting applications built using the OpenEaagles framework. A host of example applications is included with each OpenEaagles version as well.

Wright State University Documentation Posted

Tuesday, January 16, 2007: Wright State University has posted a Doxygen-based set of documentation for OpenEaagles. They have reformatting much of the source code to facilitate comment and documentation extraction. This online set of documentation contains more information than our first cut with Doxygen. See the Documentation page for more information. WSU is also offering courses in simulation this Spring and Summer that will utilize OpenEaagles. More information to come.

Apollo Command Service Module and Lunar Module in Orbit

Wednesday, December 13, 2006: Chris has been busy at work on a new application called “OpenSpace”. More information about this application can be found on the Applications page.

OE v6.12 Released

Monday, December 11, 2006: This version includes both debug and release versions of the JSBSim model library for both Visual C++ 2003 and 2005. This version resolves an interesting issue with the use of STL in Visual C++ 2005. Apparently, when using the Standard Template Library (STL), Visual C++ 2005 expects applications compiled in debug mode to be linked to libraries compiled in debug mode if it uses STL. The same goes for release mode compiled applications. Much more discussion on this topic can be found in the newsgroups. So, to avoid the issue altogether, we have expanded our 3rd party libraries to include both.

OpenEaagles at ITEA

Saturday, December 9, 2006: Sightings of OpenEaagles sporting a new TENA interoperability interface can be found at the International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA) Modeling and Simulation Conference in Las Cruces, New Mexico from December 11-14. Check out the Redstone Technical Test Center (RTTC) booth for details.

A Busy Week Comes to a Close

Thursday, December 7, 2006: Thanks to all those who visited our booth during I/ITSEC 2006. We were pleasantly surprised by the number of developers and companies already working with OpenEaagles and the interest by so many others. Make sure to report back on applications you build or any questions you encounter! So many questions were asked that we decided to start up an FAQ page. We are busy writing answers. Check back soon.

OE v6.11 Released

Thursday, November 30, 2006: This version includes the new 3D EADI instrument, a new example application (mainSim3) which uses it, and a CIGI interface for IG systems. With the example application driving the SimpleOTW application you can now “fly” around our recently released visual database. Note: For applications that utilize JSBSim and are compiled with Visual C++ Express 2005, please compile in Debug mode otherwise your application may fail. We hope to have a solution soon. December 1, 2006 Update! The problem with building an OpenEaagles based application linked with JSBSim under Visual C++ 2005 Express has apparently been solved. A new posting of OpenEaagles with a more inclusive set of 3rd party libraries will be posted soon.

Visual Database & SimpleOTW Posted

Wednesday, November 29, 2006: The Portland, Oregon visual database and the SimpleOTW viewer application is now available for download.

Portland, Oregon Visual Database

Wednesday, November 22, 2006: Our first open source visual database is in the works. It was created by Rob Subr and will be shown at I/ITSEC 2006 along with a simple out-the-window (OTW) application called SimpleOTW. Both the database and application will be posted on this site shortly. SimpleOTW was created leveraging OpenSceneGraph's scene graph rendering capabilities and OpenEaagles for input file definition, parsing, and network support. If you happen to be at I/ITSEC, please stop by for a demo. OpenEaagles can be found on display in both booth #2077 and the General Dynamics booth #1815. We can also copy the database to your memory stick if desired. (It will save you time on the download as it's over 100MB in size.)

3D EADI Coming Soon

Saturday, November 18, 2006: This new 3-dimensional Electronic Attitude Direction Indicator (EADI) will be included in the OpenEaagles instrument package soon. It should be on display at I/ITSEC 2006.

More Documentation Posted

Tuesday, November 14, 2006: Documentation in the form of conference papers, presentations, coding standards, training slide sets, and online doxygen generated output has been posted.

Visual C++ 2005 Express Installation Video

Saturday, November 11, 2006: The first in a series of training videos has been released. Click on the “Videos” link for more information.

OE v6.10b Released

Thursday, October 26, 2006: Makefile improvements for Linux plus additional functionality added to Joystick device class highlight the significant changes in this release. Additional notes concerning JSBSim installation under Linux also included.

Fedora Core 6

Wednesday, October 25, 2006: Just tested OpenEaagles installation and compilation with the newly released Fedora Core 6. Everything checks out ok.

OE v6.10a Released

Sunday, October 22, 2006: This update cleans up a few installation issues and adds JSBSim to mainSim1, mainSim2, and mainx9 example applications. Make sure to read the ReadMe.txt file in the 3rd party directory to properly install the correct libraries to link against if you are using Visual Studio.

OE v6.10 Released

Monday, October 9, 2006: JSBSim interface class added to OpenEaagles vehicles library and JSBSim library added to 3rd party support packages for Visual C++ 2003 and 2005 Express. We still need to do some fine tuning, but it works. A simple example that exercises JSBSim is also in the works. Also, the Doxygen configuration files have been updated to generate optional collaboration diagrams.

JSBSim Newletter Article

Tuesday, September 26, 2006: JSBSim is a high-quality open-source flight dynamics model that, thanks to Chris Buell, will be available in the next version of OpenEaagles. Check out the summer 2006 issue of the JSBSIM Quarterly newsletter for details.

We Have A Logo

Thursday, September 14, 2006: Special thanks to Jamil Khatib for allowing us to lift some of the artistic ideas from the OpenTech Project (a distribution package for open-source EDA tools and hardware designs) logo to use in our own. Thanks again!

OE v6.08a Released

Thursday, August 31, 2006: General update of source code. Also thanks to Bob Pritchard we now have a Doxygen configuration file for OpenEaagles. More documentation to be posted soon.

OE v6.08 Released

Saturday, August 5, 2006: This version streamlines the installation process for users of Visual C++ 2003 and Visual C++ 2005 Express. A package of precompiled 3rd party support tools such as freetype, FTGL, freeglut, FOX GUI Toolkit, and FLTK has been supplied to greatly simplify a Windows installation. This version has also been compiled with GCC in Fedora Core 5.

I/ITSEC 2006

Wednesday, August 2, 2006: Come see the variety of applications built utilizing the OpenEaagles framework at I/ITSEC (Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference). Knowledgeable folks will be available to answer your questions. A draft copy of a conference paper to be presented this year on the OpenEaagles architecture and framework is now available.

Website and Sourceforge Project Established

Saturday, July 29, 2006: This website and the OpenEaagles sourceforge project has been created to facilitate the distribution of software. This site will serve as the primary source for OpenEaagles news and information.

Public Domain Release

Monday, July 17, 2006: OpenEaagles is based upon Eaagles, a popular simulation framework developed and maintained by the U.S. Air Force to support a multitude of simulation activities. OpenEaagles is a subset of Eaagles and has just been approved for public release.