FlightGear wiki - User contributions [en]

PLIB

2011-12-22T23:56:00Z

Karam: PLIB is not required to build SimGear nor TerraGear

'''PLIB''' is a set of software libraries for writing games. [[FlightGear]] has used PLIB for most of its development. It is also used by the FlightGear related program [[Atlas]]. PLIB is open source, [[GPL]].

[[FlightGear 1.0.0]] (released in 2007) was the last public release to use PLIB for the 3d scene graph, before the the transition to OpenSceneGraph ([[OSG]]). FlightGear still uses PLIB for various I/O tasks, e.g. joysticks.

PLIB is needed when building [[FlightGear]].

== PLIB libraries ==
* Picoscopic User Interface Library (PUI)
* Sound Library (SL)
* Standard Geometry Library(SG)
* Simple Scene Graph Library (SSG)
* PUI Auxiliary Library (PUAUX)
* SSG Auxiliary Library (SSGA)
* Joystick wrappers (JS)
* Fonts'n'Text Library (FNT)
* Utility Library (UL)
* Pegasus Network Library (NET)
* PLIB Scripting Language (PSL)
* PLIB Windowing Library (PW)

== Recommended version ==
Even if version 1.8.5, shipped with most of the GNU/Linux distributions, does work for FlightGear and related software, it is [http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg20793.html recommended] to use the latest source from its SVN repo:
svn co https://plib.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/plib/trunk plib
cd plib
sed s/PLIB_TINY_VERSION\ \ 5/PLIB_TINY_VERSION\ \ 6/ -i src/util/ul.h

== Link ==
* http://plib.sourceforge.net/index.html

[[pt:PLIB]]
[[Category:Software]]

FlightGear Git

2010-10-05T22:29:25Z

Karam: /* Cloning FGData */

{{FlightGearGitOn}}
In May 2010, after a hardware failure on the CVS servers, the [[FlightGear]] project changed version control system from [[CVS]] to '''Git'''. The Git repositories are located at [http://gitorious.org/fg Gitorious] and at the [http://mapserver.flightgear.org/git/?p=fgdata;a=summary Mapserver].

Due to the recent switch, we are currently doing our best on providing manuals for obtaining FlightGear through Git. The following articles are work in progress:
* '''Mac OS X:''' [[FlightGear Git on Mac OS X]]
* '''Windows:''' [[FlightGear Git on Windows]]

== Motivation ==
Much has been written on the advantages of Git over CVS. For us, some advantages are:
* Much better support for branches and merging branches. This is especially important for creating bug-fix releases for major releases while still allowing work on the next major release to continue. It is also very nice for a developer's personal workflow.
* Easier path for contributors to submit changes and developers to integrate them;
* Much better support for everyday tasks like searching the project history for changes, viewing changes, bisecting the project history to find the original source of a bug.

Also, as noted before, the CVS servers had a hardware failure on May 2010, speeding up FlightGear's change to Git.

== Repositories ==
For historical reasons there continue to be separate repositories for Simgear and Flightgear. There are 3 interesting branches in the repositories. Listed in order from least stable to most:
* <tt>next</tt> The current tip of new development. This branch should always compile and run, but various things could be broken.
* <tt>master</tt> The tip of stable, tested new features. If we were to make a new release today, we would start from the tip of this branch. New features that have been "cooking" in the <tt>next</tt> branch for a few days or weeks will be merged here.
* <tt>maint</tt> Bug fixes for the most recently released Flightgear. When a release is made from <tt>master</tt>, this branch is reset to it.

This arrangement follows the scheme used by the Git maintainers.
[http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/howto/maintain-git.txt This description] is very technical; you will surely have achieved git-fu if completely understand it. However, the idea of maintaining several branches of different stability is common in collaborative software projects.

==Quick checkout==
Brief notes:

# Check on gitorious for valid projects: http://gitorious.org/fg
# Cloning Simgear
# Cloning FlightGear
# Cloning FGData

By default you will be checking out the next branch of SimGear and FlightGear. This is probably what you want if you want to assist with reporting bugs and the like before they are release as a proper release version.

===Cloning SimGear===
$ git clone git://gitorious.org/fg/simgear.git
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/gpatterson/project/flightgear/compiles/simgear/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 19784, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5896/5896), done.
remote: Total 19784 (delta 15095), reused 17731 (delta 13610)
Receiving objects: 100% (19784/19784), 6.85 MiB | 88 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (15095/15095), done.

===Cloning FlightGear===
$ git clone git://gitorious.org/fg/flightgear.git
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/gpatterson/project/flightgear/compiles/flightgear/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 72119, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (17140/17140), done.
remote: Total 72119 (delta 57619), reused 68255 (delta 54756)
Receiving objects: 100% (72119/72119), 19.56 MiB | 111 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (57619/57619), done.

===Cloning FGData===
$ git clone git://mapserver.flightgear.org/fgdata/
Cloning into fgdata...
remote: Counting objects: 140178, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (58872/58872), done.
remote: Total 140178 (delta 84344), reused 131129 (delta 79051)
Receiving objects: 100% (140178/140178), 2.54 GiB | 1.67 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (84344/84344), done.

==External links==
=== Git tutorials and resources ===
* Git [http://git-scm.com/documentation documentation and tutorials]
* Git as a [http://tomayko.com/topics/git way of life].
* [http://wiki.github.com/bogolisk/egg Egg], a cool Git emacs mode.
* A guide to [http://nathanj.github.com/gitguide/ using Git on Windows]
* [http://kylecordes.com/2008/04/30/git-windows-go/ Git on Windows Go!] (Setting up msysgit on Windows)
* [http://gitcasts.com/posts/git-on-windows Git on Windows (webcast)]
* [http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgit qgit - interactive git repository viewer and frontend]
* Additional [[Resources WRT running git on Win32]]

Portal:Developer

2009-04-05T21:28:44Z

Karam: Fixed cut-paste typo: blender -> gimp

{{cleanup}}

<div align="center">
[[Portal:Developer|Developer]] - [[Portal:User|User]]
</div>

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{|width="100%" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="5" style="vertical-align:top; background:#efefef;"
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">The Developer Portal</h2>
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This portal is for developers contributing to FlightGear. If you want to help with FlightGears development, it's a good idea to subscribe yourself to the [http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel FlightGear devel] mailing list. The [http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=flightgear-devel list archive] is also available and should be searched before posting the same question.<br><br>
'''Please choose a sub-portal:'''
* [[Portal:Developer/Aircraft|Aircraft]]
* [[Portal:Developer/Scenery|Scenery]]<br><br>
'''The FlightGear project is looking for organizations/individuals who would be willing to help sponsor a fulltime project coordinator/manager to help oversee the overall development process If you are interested in helping or have anything else to contribute to this issue, please subscribe to the the [http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg11813.html FlightGear Devel mailing list] to discuss details.''' (Note that the FlightGear project can apply for free funding/sponsoring with [http://www.nlnet.nl nlnet]-applications are to be sent [http://www.nlnet.nl/foundation/request/index.html here]-you can help prepare a template for applying: [[Funding Application]])
|}
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{|width="100%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="5" style="vertical-align:top; background:#efefef;"
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Current Events, Efforts/Branches & Work in Progress</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
*[[FlightGear Package Manager]] (New! Alpha release of [[Java]]/[[XML]] package manager!)
*[[Walk View‎]] (New! walk view code!)
*[[FlightGear Contest]]
'''[[Work in progress|More...]]'''

|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Latest Organizational Issues</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[ Project Infrastructure Enhancements ]]
* [[Google Summer of Code Candidate Projects]] - application template to allow community members to prepare a possible application to decrease the effort required to actually apply
* [[Pending Patches]] (2 listed for the moment)
* [[Segfaults]] - Reproducible Critical Bugs in FlightGear
* [[Showstoppers]] - Annoying Issues in FlightGear

|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Background Info</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[Programming Resources]]
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Compiling</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[ Building Flightgear ]]
* [[ Building Flightgear - Windows]]
* [http://macflightgear.sourceforge.net/home/documents/how-to-build-flightgear-cvs-on-mac-os-x/ Building Flightgear - Mac OS X]
* [[ Building FlightGear Launch Control ]]
* [[ Building Terragear ]]
* [[ Keeping FlightGear (win32) up to date without compiling]]
* [[ OpenSceneGraph ]]
* [[ Tools of the Trade ]]
* [[ Using TortoiseCVS with FlightGear ]]
* [[ Flightgear and Git ]]
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Contributing</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[ Code Cleanup ]]
* [[ Contributor Repositories ]] mirrors, branches and forks privately maintained by contributors
* [[ Development Resources ]]
* [[ Extension Support ]]
* [[ Submitting Patches ]]
* [[ Technical Reports ]]
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Code Internals</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[Command Parameters]]
* [[ FDM API ]]
* [[ File Formats ]]
* [[ Initialization Sequence ]]
* [[ Nasal scripting language ]]
* [[ Property Tree ]]
* [[ Subsystems ]]
* [[ UML Diagrams ]]
* [[ YASim ]]
* [[ FlightGear 1.0 aircraft names for command line‎|1.0.0 a/c names for command line]]

|-
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! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Todo</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[ Bugs ]]
* [[ Feature Requests / Proposals / Ideas ]]
* [[ FGFS Todo ]]
* [[ FlightGear Expo Checklist ]]
* [[ Long Term Goals ]]
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Done</h2>
|-
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* [[ Changes since 0.9.10 ]]
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">HowTos</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[Howto: Add smooth ("Ambient Occlusion") shadows in Blender|Add smooth shadows in Blender]]
* [[Howto: 3D Aircraft Models|3D Aircraft Models]]
* [[Howto: Add aircraft lights|Add aircraft lights]]
* [[Howto: Edit a livery|Edit a livery]]
* [[Howto: Illuminate faces|Illuminate faces]]
* [[Howto: Make a helicopter|Make a helicopter]]
* [[Howto: Set up a multiplayer server|Set up a multiplayer server]]
'''[[:Category:Howto|More...]]'''
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Instrumentation</h2>
|-
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* [[ Creating instruments for FG ]]
|-
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|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[ Nasal scripting language ]]
* [[ Writing simple scripts in %22nasal%22 ]]
* [[ Walk View‎]]
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Autopilot configuration</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [http://www.flightgear.org/Docs/XMLAutopilot/ FlightGear Autopilot] (Theory, Configuration, and Tuning)
* [[ Autopilot Tuning Resources ]]
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">3D Modeling</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/02/19/25-tutorials-to-get-you-started-with-blender/ 25 tutorials to get you started with blender]
* [http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/02/09/50-tutorials-to-get-you-started-with-gimp/ 50 tutorials to get started with gimp]
* [[ Howto: 3D Aircraft Models|3D Aircraft Models]] (howto)
* [[ Aircraft Information Resources ]]
* [[ Model Import and Export ]]
* [[ Modeling - FAQ ]]
* [[ Modeling - Getting Started ]]
* [[ Modeling Resources ]]
* [[ Modeling - SketchUp]]
* [[ Normals and Transparency Tutorial ]]
* [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro Blender3D Modeling]
|-
! <h2 style="margin:0; background:#0f7a71; font-size:120%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #d9e2e2; text-align:left; color:white; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Scenery</h2>
|-
|style="color:#000;"|
* [[ Blender Ground Signs Tutorial]]
* [[ Placing 3D Objects with the UFO ]]
* [[ Signs ]] (placing and explanation)
* [[ Using Terragear ]]
* [[ Using the Custom Scenery TerraGear Toolset ]]
* [[ Building_terragear-cs_in_Ubuntu_64|Building Terragear-cs in Ubuntu Hardy]]
|-
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__NOTOC__
__NOEDITSECTION__

== Developer Documentation ==
=== RFC Topics ===
'''Clarification:'''In its current form, the RFC section is exclusively based on and covered by previous mailing list and forum discussions (as well as various wiki entries), as such it is not supposed to reflect work in progress (RFC="Request For Comments" and not WIP), but is rather to be seen as an attempt to provide comprehensive analyses and summaries of key issues identified in various FlightGear related discussions and feature requests (which are to be linked to in the corresponding resource sections, if that didn't yet take place, it's because of most of these RFCs being indeed WIP).

Thus, RFC entries are not meant to imply anyone "working" on any of these issues, in fact only because an RFC entry is listed here doesn't necessarily mean that work on that particular issue is prioritized or generally endorsed by the FlightGear community.
These RFC documents are however intended to hopefully help increase and maintain awareness of long-standing issues and challenges affecting FlightGear's evolution and overall development progress in order to solicit community feedback about possible approaches to address these in an efficient and structured fashion.
Anybody is welcome to comment on, help refine and develop new strategies to tackle the challenges presented in these and future RFCs.

* [[Autopilot Enhancements]] - enhancing the autopilot infrastructure.
* [[Backwards Compatibility Initiative]] - discussing possible ways to improve FlightGear's backwards compatibility.
* [[Distributed Interactive Simulation|Multiplayer Enhancements]] - discussing possible steps to enhance FlightGear's Multiplayer support.
* [[FDM engine feature standardization]] - discussing possible steps to standardize feature support of mainstream FlightGear FDM engines.
* [[FlightGear Glass Cockpits]] - discussing required infrastructure changes to enable non-developers to easily access FlightGear-internals in order to enable them to model complex glass cockpit-type aircraft instrumentation systems.
* [[FlightGear Headless]] - discussing required steps to enable FlightGear to be used as its own regression testing framework
* [[FlightGear Sessions]] - discussing possible steps to finally allow aircraft to be reliably switched at runtime.
* [[Formalizing Aircraft Status]] - discussing suggestions about how to more properly describe aircraft development status.
* [[Keyboard function priority list]] - reorganizing FlightGear keybindings.
* [[Next Generation Scenery ]] - revamping the FG scenery engine.
* [[Property Tree Reorganization]] - reorganizing the property tree (i.e. implementing and enforcing existing property/node naming conventions).
* [[Recommended Property Tree Enhancements]] - discussing possible property tree enhancements to help ensure integrity of crucial runtime state.
* [[Recommended Project Policies]] - discussing recommended policies for future contributions to the project.
* [[Simplifying Aircraft Deployment]] - identifying potential steps to simplify deployment of FlightGear aircraft.

FlightGear 1.0 hardware recommendations

2008-01-12T19:51:32Z

Karam: /* Input Hardware (Joysticks, Pedals & Yokes) known to work */

__NOTOC__
== Recommended hardware specs - for FlightGear 1.0 ==

For example
x86 PC:

* 1-2 GHZ (multi-core benefits may be employed by threaded FlightGear components such as for example the tile loader)
* 512-1024 MB RAM (more is better: as of 01/2008 FlightGear will often easily eat up >= 500 MB RAM by default, thus if less free RAM is available the FlightGear process would be significantly slowed down due to OS swapping)
* 3D hardware accelerator, 128-256 MB, OpenGL 1.2 capable (2.0 even better!)
* 400 MB free HD space needed for minimum installation (>=2 GB for compilations recommended), in addition: approximately ~100MB per installed scenery tile (terrain: non-ocean)
* Soundblaster compatible soundcard (optional?) - preferably with EAX support
* Gameport or USB (HID compatible) joystick/yoke and/or pedals (optional)

== 3D graphic cards that are known to work ==

* NVIDIA GeForce MX420/440 (64Mb), GeForce 4 series, GeForce FX series, GeForce 6 series, GeForce 7300GT, GeForce 7600
For problems with nvidia chips, take a look here :
http://wiki.flightgear.org/flightgear_wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Problems#Slow_Framerate_with_Graphic_Card_with_Nvidia_chip

Comparison of NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_Graphics_Processing_Units

* ATI Radeon 9000/9200/9250 series, Radeon 9600/9800 series

Comparison of NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_Graphics_Processing_Units

Basically, you should be fine with any NVIDIA or ATI card that is not older than 12-18 months; however, you need to take into account that some of the newer features in FlightGear may not work as expected or may not even work altogether with older hardware. In general, 3D cards that make use of shared memory should be avoided (PCI express cards that share memory are ok). Also, if you intend to use FlightGear under Linux you may first want to check whether the driver for your card is fully supported under Linux (and your X version) or not, in general linux driver support is generally considered to be better for nvidia-based products than for ATI ones, however both manufacturers provide primarily closed-source drivers, in binary form.
In addition, for products from both ATI & nvidia it is not unusual to notice that the same machine/hardware setup performs "better" (in the sense of reached average framerates, using identical startup&runtime settings) under Win32 than under Linux, this is often an indicator for the unfortunate fact that Win32 OpenGL driver implementations tend -at least so far- to be more completely and efficiently implemented than the linux ones.

Currently, you can basically forget about using any Matrox cards as FlightGear is very heavy on textures, but only the high-end matrox cards will have sufficient capabilities to deal with FlightGear's requirements.

TODO: explain PCI vs. AGP (2x,4x,8x) vs. PCI-E

=== Related Mailing List Discussions ===
* http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg05830.html

== Input Hardware (Joysticks, Pedals & Yokes) known to work ==
(Please check $FG_ROOT/data/Input/Joysticks)

* CH PRODUCTS PRO PEDALS (USB/GAMEPORT)
* CH PRODUCTS PRO YOKE (USB/GAMEPORT)
* Logitech Attack 3 joystick (USB)
* Logitech Extreme 3d Pro (USB) (Windows, Linux and OS-X)
* Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro
* Saitek ST290 Pro joystick (USB)(Linux)
* Saitek X45 and Throttle (USB)(Linux, Windows)
* Rockfire Gameport to USB adaptor with 4-axis gameport joystick

== Hardware Incompatibilities ==

* Cyborg-3d-force-usb from Saitek leads to a crash under Linux