VR Juggler 2.2.1 Released

Patrick Hartling — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:50:35 -0000

I am pleased to announce the availability of VR Juggler 2.2.1, albeit several days after the actual release occurred. VR Juggler 2.2.1 represents a significant improvement to the VR Juggler 2.2 release series, due in no small part to feedback, bug reports, and fixes from users. All users of VR Juggler 2.0.x and 2.2.0 are strongly encouraged to update to this release.

Source code for VR Juggler 2.2.1 is available on SourceForge at the following address:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=8041&package_id=8163&release_id=581899

Bundled documentation can be downloaded from the following address:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=8041&package_id=8617&release_id=581907

Binary builds may be posted on www.vrjuggler.org for Windows, but it could a while.

This release is binary compatible with VR Juggler 2.2.0, and most applications should not need to be recompiled to take advantage of this new version. Applications whose application object is derived from vrj::OsgApp are the exception. In particular, there has been a minor API change to vrj::OsgApp to fix a compile error. The return type of vrj::OsgApp::getSceneViewDefaults() has changed from osgUtil::SceneView::Options to unsigned int, and overrides of that method *must* be changed to reflect this new signature.

Among the highlights in this release are the following:

* All platforms now support auto-discovery of installation paths thereby reducing the need for setting environment variables such as VJ_BASE_DIR on all platforms. This capability was introduced in the Windows version of VR Juggler 2.2.0.
* Rendering threads in the OpenGL Draw Manager can now have CPU affinity set on Linux. Effective use of this feature can have big performance improvements on multi-CPU and multi-core machines. Refer to the Chapter 13 of the VR Juggler /Programmer's Guide/ for details on how to use this new feature.
* Cocoa support is vastly improved. This includes critical fixes for keyboard/mouse access to applications.
* Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) is fully supported.
* A critical bug in the MotionStar driver has been fixed that would cause crashes on certain hardware.
* Several bugs in the IntersenseAPI driver have been fixed.
* Plug-in loading and execution problems in Sonix on Windows have been fixed.
* A driver for the MotionNode inertial tracker has been added.
* Many improvements, corrections, and additions have been made to the documentation.

Regarding the simplifications related to environment variables and automatic installation detection, please refer to the following section of the VR Juggler /Getting Started Guide/ for detailed information:

http://developer.vrjuggler.org/docs/vrjuggler/2.2/getting.started.guide/getting.started.guide/ch02s02.html

VR Juggler 2.0.4 released

Patrick Hartling — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:35:05 -0000

VR Juggler 2.0.4 has been released. This release has several bug fixes made since the 2.0.3 release. The most critical of these is that VRPN device now work in a cluster configuration again and vrj::OsgApp is now stable in multi-pipe/multi-threaded VR Juggler configurations. All users of Open Scene Graph and VR Juggler 2.0 are strongly encouraged to update to this release and recompile their applications. This can be accomplished by copying the 2.0.4 vrj/Draw/OSG/OsgApp.h file in to an older VR Juggler 2.0 release, but the best results will be achieved by updating the entire Juggler platform to 2.0.4.

This is a source-only release intended to make these bug fixes available in an easier form than checking the code out from the Subversion repository. Infiscape will not be packaging binaries of this release, but if people prepare binaries that they would like posted for download, we will provide the hosting for those binaries. Contact the project administrators directly if you are interested in posting binaries.

This release marks the closing of the VR Juggler 2.0 branch. From here on, bug fixes and enhancements will not be merged to the 2.0 branch. If there are people interested in maintaining VR Juggler 2.0, please the project administrators directly, and we can discuss options for how best to do that. VR Juggler 2.0 has definitely been a good platform for VR application development, but VR Juggler 2.2 will be even better (much, much better, in my opinion). We want to encourage everyone to migrate to VR Juggler 2.2, but this release can be used in the meantime to get the most stable version of VR Juggler 2.0 yet.

VR Juggler 2.2 Beta 1 released

Patrick Hartling — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 15:50:46 -0000

Introduction

Two years a few days after the release of VR Juggler 2.0.0, VR Juggler 2.2 Beta 1 finally sees the light of day. VR Juggler 2.2 represents a significant improvement over the VR Juggler 2.0 release series, and we think that users will be quite happy with the results. Download information is available at this location:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/download.php#vrjuggler22

RPMs for several Linux distributions are available in the "infiscape-testing" repository. Information about this is available on the page above. VR Juggler 2.2 Beta 1 is officially version 2.1.31, and the RPMs use the actual version identifiers rather than the symbolic "Beta 1" name.

In general, most applications should migrate from VR Juggler 2.0 to 2.2 quite seamlessly, but there are bound to be exceptions. All users and application developers are strongly encouraged to read the VR Juggler 2.2 Migration Guide carefully. It can be found here:

http://developer.vrjuggler.org/wiki/MigratingToVrjTwoTwo

Note especially that configuration files need to be updated for proper migration.

New Features and Improvements

Here is a list of new features and improvements relative to VR Juggler 2.0.3:

* Improved cluster scalability and performance.

* Improved error handling and recovery through the use of exceptions for error reporting. VR Juggler 2.2 is based on VPR 2.0 which uses exception handling for all error reporting. vpr::ReturnStatus is now considered deprecated.

* Easier command-line application build support by leveraging Flagpoll (see https://realityforge.vrsource.org/view/FlagPoll/WebHome for more information). While the use of Flagpoll on Windows is still being refined, by the time VR Juggler 2.2.0 is released, command line compilation using Flagpoll will be supported on all platforms. Note that the *-config Perl scripts (such as vrjuggler-config) no longer exist in VR Juggler 2.2. Forward compatibility for this change was introduced with VR Juggler 2.0.2.

* Cocoa support on Mac OS X. VR Juggler applications are deployed as bundles, and X11 is not required at all. Mac OS X users should review the updated VR Juggler Getting Started Guide for information on application execution options.

NOTE: The VR Juggler Programmer's Guide is still not quite complete with respect to Cocoa use. In the meantime, send questions about this topic to the vrjuggler-info mailing list.

* Support for parallel installations. To facilitate long-lived applications, the Juggler runtime (shared libraries and data files) from multiple versions can be installed in parallel. To get the most from this capability, users are strongly encouraged to use GMTL 0.5.4 and CppDOM 0.7.9 or newer, both of which also support parallel installations.

* Versioned headers, data files, and shared libraries on non-Windows platforms. This is all in support of parallel installations.

* Versioned DLLs on Windows. Windows builds should use automatic linking to avoid complicated detection of .lib file names. Forward compatibility for this change (i.e., automatic linking) was introduced in VR Juggler 2.0.2.

* Support for 64-bit applications on Windows. This requires the use of the CVS HEAD version of NSPR (currently known as NSPR 4.7).

* Reduced dependency on NSPR on Windows. We are using Windows threading and synchronization primitives directly instead of the NSPR wraeppers. The (very) long-term goal is to drop the need for NSPR on Windows if its quirks and limitations continue to be a liability.

* Reduced run-time dependence on environment variables such as VJ_BASE_DIR and SNX_BASE_DIR. This has been in the works since the VR Juggler 2.0 beta stages. Now, for the Windows case, running VR Juggler applications does not require setting VJ_BASE_DIR at all. The installation path is determined at run time when the DLLs are attached to the process. The Visual C++ project files still reference VJ_BASE_DIR and VJ_DEPS_DIR, however.

* Support for OpenSG 2.0 (relative to the current SVN trunk version of OpenSG 2 or the fcptr_stable_jun07 branch) in vrj::OpenSGApp.

* Early support for Direct3D. The VR Juggler Direct3D Draw Manager is in the alpha stages of development, and feedback and improvements would be welcome.

* Proper destruction of singletons created using the VPR singleton preprocessor macros when the application exits. This facilitates much cleaner shutdown, especially in the case of device drivers.

* More flexible debug handling on Windows. There are now two debug-enabled versions of all binaries: one linked against the release runtime and one linked against the debug runtime. This allows applications linked against the release runtime to switch to using debug-enabled Juggler libraries simply by changing the PATH environment variable. This same capability has always existed on non-Windows platforms by modifying (DY)LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

* Expanded use of boost::shared_ptr<> for better (internal) memory handling. User-level code will probably not see much of this.

* Eliminated the need for OSG- and OpenSG-based applications to define plain OpenGL lighting just to make the VR Juggler simulator components render well. See the OSG and OpenSG sample applications for the current state of things.

* Initial Unicode support for Gadgeteer keyboard/mouse devices.

* Support for the noDNA X-IST device. Submitted by Damien Touraine.

* Support for the USB Essential Reality P5 Glove. Submitted by Damian Touraine.

* Revamped Polhemus Fastrak driver that is much easier to configure.

* Enhanced configurability of multisampling with OpenGL windows. Currently, this is only supported fully on the X Window System.

More Information

New VR Juggler users should read the VR Juggler 2.2 Getting Started Guide:

http://developer.vrjuggler.org/docs/vrjuggler/2.2/getting.started.guide/getting.started.guide

All VR Juggler documentation can be found from this page:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/documentation.php

The release of VR Juggler 2.2 Beta 1 means that support for VR Juggler 2.0 will be winding down. At this point, only critical bug fixes will be merged to the VR Juggler 2.0 branch in the Subversion repository, and it is very unlikely that there will be a VR Juggler 2.0.4 release.

PyJuggler 1.0.1 released

Patrick Hartling — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:08:20 -0000

Following up on the release of VR Juggler 2.0.3, I would like to announce formally the release of PyJuggler 1.0.1. This version is up to date with VR Juggler 2.0.3 and includes fixes for some minor bugs. The source for this release has been available for a a few weeks now, and there have been RPMs and an installer for Mac OS X available. Now, there are new builds of PyJuggler 1.0.1 made against VR Juggler 2.0.3 and Windows installation wizards. The installation wizards for Windows include the Boost.Python DLL and PyGMTL 0.4.12.

Information about obtaining the source code and binary versions of PyJuggler for Fedora Cora 6 (i386 and x86_64), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (i386 and x86_64), openSUSE 10.2 (i386), Mac OS X Tiger, and Microsoft Windows can be found on this page:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/download.php

For more information, go to the PyJuggler website:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/pyjuggler/

Please note that the Windows builds are for use with Python 2.4. There are two separate builds depending on which build of VR Juggler 2.0.3 is installed: one for Visual C++ 7.1 and one for Visual C++ 8.0.

PyJuggler documentation can be found here:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/documentation.php

The pydoc-generated API documentation for PyJuggler is available with the pre-compiled releases.

The pre-compiled versions of PyJuggler (except the Mac OS X version) were built against Open Scene Graph 1.2.0 and OpenSG 1.8.0 from January 30, 2007. If you are not using PyOSG or pyOpenSG at all, do not worry about this detail. The access to PyJuggler.vrj.OsgApp and PyJuggler.vrj.OpenSGApp through PyJuggler is optional, and its availability is determined at run time.

* What is PyJuggler?

PyJuggler is an extension to VR Juggler I started in my spare time one weekend in November 2002. Its main purpose is to fulfill a goal I have had for a long time: the ability to write VR Juggler application objects in a scripting language. In this case, the language is Python, a mature and popular object-oriented scripting language.

Using PyJuggler, it is possible to write a VR Juggler application object in Python and load the object into the VR Juggler kernel, which of course is written in C++. Python-based application objects can even be mixed with C++ application objects in the same kernel. Lastly, it is possible to write the equivalent of a C++ main() function in Python so that a developer need never see or write any C++ code to use VR Juggler.

PyJuggler is built on top of the excellent Boost.Python v2 library (http://www.boost.org/libs/python/). Boost.Python makes the mapping between C++ and Python quite simple. It also makes embedding Python in C++ vastly easier than was previously possible.

* Current Status

The exposure of Juggler C++ classes to Python through PyJuggler should be comprehensive enough to allow full-featured VR Juggler application objects to be written in Python using OpenGL. The use of Open Scene Graph depends on the availability of PyOSG. Similarly, the use of OpenSG depends on pyOpenSG, and it is known to work with version 0.1.

* What's Next?

There is a branch in the Juggler Subversion repository to allow bug fix releases of PyJuggler 1.0 to be made as necessary. The HEAD branch of the PyJuggler Subversion tree is for the development of PyJuggler 1.1--the code that will become PyJuggler 1.2. PyJuggler 1.1 has some significant changes relative to PyJuggler 1.0 to improve performance and memory efficiency.

Unfortunately, these changes will not be merged to the PyJuggler 1.0 branch because they would cause a major change to the (internal) run-time behavior of PyJuggler, and this could introduce a highly undesirable degradation of stability. The changes will be allowed to mature in PyJuggler 1.1 to be released in PyJuggler 1.2.

Other than that, PyJuggler 1.1 will be kept in sync with VR Juggler 2.1, and new features will be added when the need arises.

VR Juggler 2.0.3 released

Patrick Hartling — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:05:20 -0000

* Introduction

VR Juggler 2.0.3 has been released after a critical bug was fixed in the configuration file loading having to do with how included files are found when using relative paths. While this bug may not affect all (or even most) users of VR Juggler 2.0.2, we still recommend that everyone update to this release. Download information is available at this location:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/download.php

Updating from VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 1 or newer requires recompiling all code that uses the Juggler C++ libraries.

* Bug Fixes and Enhancements

- Fixed relative path handling when loading .jconf files included by other .jconf files.

- Updated hyperlinks in VRJConfig data files and code to reflect organizational changes on www.vrjuggler.or and www.infiscape.com.

- Made vpr::Selector const safe.

* More Information

New VR Juggler users should read the VR Juggler 2.0 Getting Started Guide:

http://developer.vrjuggler.org/docs/vrjuggler/2.0/getting.started.guide/getting.started.guide

All VR Juggler documentation can be found from this page:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/documentation.php

Please be aware that the VR Juggler 2.0 pre-releases are obsolete. No patches will be merged to the 2.0 Alpha 3 or Alpha 4 branches. Once again, users of all previous VR Juggler releases are strongly encouraged to update to the VR Juggler 2.0.3 release.

VR Juggler 2.0.1 released

Patrick Hartling — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:10:47 -0000

* Introduction

Today marks the release of the best version of VR Juggler yet: 2.0.1. Many hours and days have been spent tracking down and fixing bugs reported by users of the VR Juggler 2.0.0 release, and the result is a much more stable and more reliable VR Juggler 2.0 release. VR Juggler 2.0.1 is a bug-fix release relative to VR Juggler 2.0.0, and all users of VR Juggler 2.0.0 and the 2.0 pre-releases are strongly encouraged to upgrade to this new release.

Updating from VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 1 or newer generally involves the simple process recompiling applications code, but users of Performer should read the release notes carefully. Users of PyJuggler 1.0 should rebuild the PyJuggler source against this VR Juggler release since PyJuggler is tightly coupled with the VR Juggler library binaries. There will not be a new release of PyJuggler since nothing has changed since the release of PyJuggler 1.0.0.

For convenience, I include the highlights from the VR Juggler 2.0.1 release notes:

* The VR Juggler Performer Draw Manager no longer calls pfExit() when it is shut down. Instead, users who want to ensure that Performer cleans up its resources should put a call to pfExit() at the very end of their application main() function. The call to pfExit() must be the last call in main().

* Use of Performer on IRIX has been fixed, and keyboard/mouse input into Performer graphics windows now works on IRIX (in addition to Linux and Windows).

* A critical bug in the InterSense API and IS-900 device drivers has been fixed.

* The InterSense API driver has been updated to the latest release of the InterSense Interface SDK and now has better support for UNIX-based operating systems running on 64-bit architectures.

* gadget::KeyEvent objects on Windows now provide the same information as is available when using the X Window System.

* Mouse scroll wheel events are now supported and are treated as button press/release events for mouse buttons 4 and 5.

* Sample rate problems with the Sonix OpenAL plug-in have been fixed.

* VRJ VNC now supports Windows.

As usual, you can find binaries, source code, pre-packaged dependencies, and rendered documentation on SourceForge. Downloads and requirements can be found here:

http://www.vrjuggler/vrjuggler/download-2_0.php

Some builds are still being prepared, and they should be posted on SourceForge later today. Once they are, the VR Juggler website will be updated accordingly.

New VR Juggler users should read the VR Juggler 2.0 /Getting Started Guide/:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/vrjuggler/2.0/getting.started.guide/getting.started.guide/

Please be aware that the VR Juggler 2.0 pre-releases are considered obsolete. No more patches will be merged to the 2.0 Alpha 3 or Alpha 4 branches. Once again, users of VR Juggler 2.0 pre-releases are strongly encouraged to update to the VR Juggler 2.0.1 release.

* Porting from 1.0

We have worked to address problems with VR Juggler 1.0, both in the design and in the implementation. We have also taken advantage of advances in C++ compiler technology to make the code faster, simpler, and more robust. To learn about updating VR Juggler 1.0 applications, refer to the porting documentation:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/twiki_public/bin/view/Juggler/MigratingToVrjTwo

This is a Wiki page, so everyone can contribute additional information and/or tips as necessary.

PyJuggler 1.0.0 released

Patrick Hartling — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 15:27:38 -0000

It gives me great pleasure to announce the release of PyJuggler 1.0.0. This release is fully compatible with VR Juggler 2.0.0 and is ready for widespread use. Since PyJuggler 1.0 Beta 2 was released, many bugs were fixed in classes introduced in PyJuggler 1.0 Beta 1. These classes were primarily in the modules PyJuggler.snx and PyJuggler.gadget, so they may not have seen too much use yet. Users updating to PyJuggler 1.0.0 are strongly encouraged to update to PyGMTL 0.4.9 as well. That release has a couple of important bug fixes relative to PyGMTL 0.4.8.

For more information and downloads, go to the PyJuggler website:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/pyjuggler/

The full source code and binary versions of PyJuggler for Fedora Cora 4 (x86), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (AMD64/EM64T), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 for SGI Prism (IA-64), Mac OS X Tiger, and Microsoft Windows can be downloaded from this page:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/pyjuggler/download.php

Please note that there are two separate builds for Windows: one for Python 2.3 and one for Python 2.4.

PyJuggler documentation can be found here:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/pyjuggler/docs.php

The pydoc-generated API documentation for PyJuggler and PyGMTL is available with the pre-compiled releases and from the above page.

All pre-compiled releases include a compiled version of PyGMTL 0.4.9, which includes pickling support for all GMTL data types. A pre-compiled copy of Boost.Python from Boost 1.32.0 comes with the VR Juggler 2.0.0 dependencies. It is highly recommended that the dependency distribution be used.

The pre-compiled versions of PyJuggler (except the Mac OS X version) were built against Open Scene Graph 0.9.9. To my knowledge, there is not yet a full release of PyOSG that is up to date with the Open Scene Graph 0.9.9 API, but I hope that one will be available soon. If you are using OSG 0.9.8, you will have to rebuild PyJuggler against that version. If you are not using OSG at all, do not worry about this detail. The access to PyJuggler.vrj.OsgApp through PyJuggler is optional, and its availability is determined at run time.

What is PyJuggler?
------------------
PyJuggler is an extension to VR Juggler I started in my spare time one weekend in November 2002. Its main purpose is to fulfill a goal I have had for a long time: the ability to write VR Juggler application objects in a scripting language. In this case, the language is Python, a mature and popular object-oriented scripting language.

Current Status
--------------
The exposure of Juggler C++ classes to Python through PyJuggler should be comprehensive enough to allow full-featured VR Juggler application objects to be written in Python using OpenGL. The use of Open Scene Graph depends on the availability of PyOSG. Support for accessing OpenSG will likely be available in a future release sometime later this year.

Known Issues
------------
To use Boost (and Boost.Python specifically) on Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4), it is necessary to get the in-progress Boost 1.33.0 source from the Boost CVS repository. Boost 1.32.0 will not compile on Mac OS X Tiger without modifications to the Boost build. The VR Juggler 2.0.0 release for OS X Tiger includes the necessary components of Boost in order for PyJuggler 1.0.0 to be used on Mac OS X Tiger.

What's Next?
------------
There is a branch in the PyJuggler CVS module to allow bug fix releases of PyJuggler 1.0 to be made as necessary. The HEAD branch of the CVS module is for the development of PyJuggler 1.1--the code that will become PyJuggler 1.2. PyJuggler 1.1 already has some significant changes relative to PyJuggler 1.0 to improve performance and memory efficiency. Unfortunately, these changes will not be merged to the PyJuggler 1.0 branch because they would cause a major change to the (internal) run-time behavior of PyJuggler, and this could introduce a highly undesirable degradation of stability. The changes will be allowed to mature in PyJuggler 1.1 to be released in PyJuggler 1.2.

Other than that, PyJuggler 1.1 will be kept in sync with VR Juggler 2.1, and new features will be added when the need arises.

VR Juggler 2.0.0 released

Patrick Hartling — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 02:21:55 -0000

Introduction
------------

After three developer releases, four alpha releases, and three beta releases, it gives me great pleasure to announce the long-awaited release of VR Juggler 2.0.0. VR Juggler 2.0 has been in development for more than four and a half years, and it has been a long and winding road to reach this point. This release represents the work of a varied group of developers, many who have come and gone during the last four and a half years. Just as importantly, VR Juggler 2.0 is the result of feedback from countless users of VR Juggler 1.0 and the ten (!) 2.0 pre-releases.

The new features in VR Juggler 2.0 relative to VR Juggler 1.0 are too numerous to list here. Interested readers are referred to the following web page on the Juggler Wiki:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/twiki_public/bin/view/Juggler/VrjTwoZeroFeatures

Since VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3 was released one month ago, the new developments are as follows:

* Support for Windows XP x64 Edition
* Finalized support for AMD64/EM64T and IA-64 Linux distributions
* Bug fixes and documentation enhancements in VRJConfig
* Stability fixes in Sonix
* Stability fixes for Open Scene Graph-based VR Juggler applications
* More application shutdown improvements

As usual, you can find binaries, source code, pre-packaged dependencies, and rendered documentation on SourceForge. Downloads and requirements can be found here:

http://www.vrjuggler/vrjuggler/download-2_0.php

New VR Juggler users should read the VR Juggler 2.0 /Getting Started Guide/:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/vrjuggler/2.0/getting.started.guide/getting.started.guide/

To update to this release from VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 1, Beta 2, or Beta 3, the process is as simple as installing the release and recompiling your applications. To update from 2.0 Alpha 4, the process is the same as explained in the 2.0 Beta 1 release notes. Please read the VR Juggler 2.0.0 release notes for more details. The release notes can be seen here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=333262

With this release, the VR Juggler 2.0 pre-releases should be considered obsolete. No more patches will be merged to the 2.0 Alpha 3 or Alpha 4 branches. Users of VR Juggler 2.0 pre-releases are strongly encouraged to update to the VR Juggler 2.0.0 release.

Porting from 1.0
----------------

http://www.vrjuggler.org/twiki_public/bin/view/Juggler/MigratingToVrjTwo

This is a Wiki page, so everyone can contribute additional information and/or tips as necessary.

What's Next?
------------

As most VR Juggler users are probably aware, we use an even/odd version numbering scheme. When the minor version number is even, the release series has been stabilized and will primarily only have bug fix releases on an as-needed basis. When the minor number is odd, the code is an in-progress version of the next stable release series and should be considered (relatively) unstable.

The CVS HEAD branch of the repository has been identified as VR Juggler 2.1 since the release of VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3. VR Juggler 2.1 is the code that will become VR Juggler 2.2. At this time, we plan to release VR Juggler 2.2 between 6 and 12 months from now. The development process will be much more focused and will not experience the degree of instability and long development cycles seen with VR Juggler 1.1. To that effect, you can see the current plans for VR Juggler 2.2 here:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/twiki_public/bin/view/Juggler/DevelopmentStatus#VR_Juggler_2_2_Features

We also have VR Juggler 2.4 in our sights (mainly to keep VR Juggler 2.2 development under control), and the plans for VR Juggler 2.4 can be seen here:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/twiki_public/bin/view/Juggler/DevelopmentStatus#VR_Juggler_2_4_Features

VR Juggler 2.0 has its own branch in the CVS repository so that bugs can be fixed and patch releases (2.0.1, 2.0.2, etc.) can be released. Some VR Juggler 2.2 features may be merged to the 2.0 branch, but only as long as no changes would be required to user code or user configurations to update to a VR Juggler 2.0.x patch release. This would be decided on a case-by-case basis. Users interested in tracking VR Juggler 2.0 through CVS should refer to the following page to get the necessary information about the Juggler CVS branches:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/twiki_public/bin/view/Juggler/CvsBranches

PyJuggler 1.0 Beta 2 released

Patrick Hartling — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 13:48:52 -0000

Following up on the release of VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3, I am pleased to announce the release of PyJuggler 1.0 Beta 2. This release is primarily a bug-fix release relative to 1.0 Beta 1, released in December 2004. The most significant aspect of this release is the update to use PyGMTL 0.4.8, which was released earlier this week. PyGMTL 0.4.8 has dozens of bug fixes and interface enhancements to ensure that the full power of GMTL can be accessed from Python.

For more information and downloads, go to the PyJuggler website:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/pyjuggler/

The full source code and binary versions of PyJuggler for Fedora Cora 3, Mac OS X Tiger, and Microsoft Windows can be downloaded from this page:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/pyjuggler/download.php

PyJuggler documentation can be found here:

http://www.vrjuggler.org/pyjuggler/docs.php

The pydoc-generated API documentation is available with the pre-compiled releases and from the above page.

All pre-compiled releases include a compiled version of PyGMTL 0.4.8, which includes pickling support for all GMTL data types. A pre-compiled copy of Boost.Python from Boost 1.32.0 comes with the VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3 dependencies. It is highly recommended that the dependency distribution be used. The package for your platform and compiler can be acquired here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=8041&package_id=117007&release_id=333326

Please note that the pre-compiled versions of PyJuggler for Fedora Core 3 and Windows were built against Python 2.3 and Open Scene Graph 0.9.9. To my knowledge, there is no release of PyOSG that is up to date with the Open Scene Graph 0.9.9 API, but I hope that one will be available soon.

If you are using Python 2.4, you will have to build Boost.Python, PyGMTL, and PyJuggler yourself (it will work just fine). If you are using OSG 0.9.8, you will have to rebuild PyJuggler against that version. If you are not using OSG at all, do not worry about this detail. The access to PyJuggler.vrj.OsgApp through PyJuggler is optional, and its availability is determined at run time.

Known Problems
--------------
At this time, third-party dependencies such as omniORB and Open Scene Graph are not getting along with PyJuggler on Mac OS X. Therefore, PyOSG cannot be used with PyJuggler on Mac OS X, and the CORBA-based features of the VR Juggler C++ code base are not available through PyJuggler. All other platforms are working fine.

To use Boost (and Boost.Python specifically) on Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4), it is necessary to get the in-progress Boost 1.33.0 source from the Boost CVS repository. Boost 1.32.0 will not compile on Mac OS X Tiger without modifications to the Boost build. The VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3 release for OS X Tiger includes the necessary components of Boost in order for PyJuggler 1.0 Beta 2 to be used on Mac OS X Tiger.

VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3 released

Patrick Hartling — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 20:46:20 -0000

Introduction
------------

As the VR Juggler 2.0 release manager, I am pleased to announce the the long-awaited, long-delayed release of VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3. This release is the culmination of more than four years of work by a varied group of developers and the results of feedback from countless users who tried out the beta releases and the alpha releases.

VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3 is primarily a bug-fix release relative to the 2.0 Beta 2 release made in January 2005. We got a fantastic amount of feedback about the 2.0 Beta 2 release and were able to make numerous improvements to the C++ code base as a result. We are hopeful that that trend will continue with this release to ensure that VR Juggler 2.0.0 is stable, robust, and generally fun to use.

The most noticeable changes in VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3 are in VRJConfig. Most of the last five months have been spent improving the Java code base to fix bugs, to add missing features, and to address VRJConfig interface annoyances. Moreover, the VRJConfig Control Panel received a lot of attention, and it includes two new custom editors to help with the VR Juggler configuration process. The first custom editor is used for presenting users with a high level view of the relationships between input devices, proxies, and proxy aliases. The second custom editor is designed to help with editing a projection-based VR system configuration. A brand new wizard for creating VR system configurations is built on top of this wizard. This wizard helps automate the process of creating a multi-wall VR system configuration--clustered and otherwise--from scratch.

As usual, you can find binaries and source code on SourceForge. It is recommended that you visit the VR Juggler download page on http://www.vrjuggler.org/ for details on new requirements since VR Juggler 1.0:

http://www.vrjuggler/vrjuggler/download-2_0.php

To update to this release from VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 1 or Beta 2, the process is as simple as installing the release and recompiling your applications. To update from 2.0 Alpha 4, the process is the same as explained in the 2.0 Beta 1 release notes. Please read the VR Juggler 2.0 Beta 3 release notes for more details. The release notes can be seen here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=333262

Significance of Beta Status
---------------------------

What does it mean for VR Juggler 2.0 to be in beta release? It means that we feel that the code has reached a point of maturity and stability that it is ready for wide-spread use, but we know that there are still going to be some bugs cropping up. We want people to try out the code and let us know about any problems that are found. Doing so will help ensure that the VR Juggler 2.0.0 release is a success for everyone. Bugs should be reported using the SourceForge tracker:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=8041&atid=108041

Reaching beta status also means that the development process is shifting into bug-fixing mode. The user-visible C++ and Java APIs are now frozen and will not change. The configuration files are now also is a frozen state and will not require any updating from now up through the final 2.0.0 release. All of this will make it very easy to update from one beta to the next all the way till 2.0.0 is released. Upgrading will mean simply installing a newer VR Juggler release and recompiling C++ applications against the new version.

VR Juggler 2.0 Release Time Line
--------------------------------

The following is the current time line for the VR Juggler 2.0.0 release:

* VR Juggler 2.0.0: July 5, 2005

Remember that the more bug reports we receive, the better the 2.0.0 release will be. After VR Juggler 2.0.0 is released, development will begin on VR Juggler 2.2, which will include more new features that did not make it into the 2.0 release series. VR Juggler 2.2.0 will be released six months or a year after VR Juggler 2.0.0.

Porting from 1.0
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http://www.vrjuggler.org/twiki_public/bin/view/Juggler/MigratingToVrjTwo

This is a Wiki page, so everyone can contribute additional information and/or tips as necessary.

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