Features

Launcher

• The edit button in the Launcher is now correctly disabled if a built-in profile is selected at startup

UI

• Used a more user-friendly "Default Properties" instead of "DefaultProperties" for the GeoJSON layers

Content

Updates to existing Assets/Profiles

• Increased the maximum tile level for the ESRI World Imagery from 19 to 21
• The layers defined in the paleo map asset will now be disabled by default as they were too many and caused issues

Lua

• The openspace.time.SPICE function onw takes an additional argument to control the formatting of the returned date string
• The openspace.downloadFile function now takes an additional argument controlling whether a file should be downloaded if it already exists

Bug Fixes

• Height layers on Earth would disappear when requesting the highest available detail (#3791)
• The OpenSpace Helper that renders the user interface now also correctly requests a dedicated graphics card, causing the application to no longer crash
• The user interface became unresponsive when displaying a large amount of data
• Disabling Perform shading on globes would create a warning message for every frame (#3770)
• The action to add a sun trail would behaved inconsistently for different dates (#3817)
• Restore the erroneously removed barycentric trail for the Pluto system
• The shadows on a ring system would not render correctly in fisheye mode (#3776)
• The action to toggle planet and moon trails was not working correctly
• The Lua console would result in an infinite loop when minimizing OpenSpace while the console was open
• The fieldlines in the Today's Sun profile would not be colored correctly when switching days (#3786)
• Spherical grids did render incorrectly when their opacity was not completely full
• The Nights Sky version of Saturn was missing the correct scale factors
• The Minor Planet Center asset contained an error causing it to fail to load
• The period of asteroids retrieved from the Minor Planet Center was calculated incorrectly (#3804)
• OpenSpace would crash when deinitializing a ScreenSpaceRenderableRenderable
• The base folder was detected incorrectly when providing the path to a openspace.cfg file that lived in a different folder (#3806)
• The camera position could become unreliable when focussing on an object with a degenerate model transform (#3177)
• Correctly set sandboxing settings for Chromium Embedded Framework on Linux (#3711)

This patch release fixes an issue where planetary surfaces would disappear when the camera approaches them and high-resolution images were displayed.

Features

• Added the functionality to automatically choose a discrete graphics card over an integrated graphics card on laptops that have both
• Improved the rendering of orbital trajectories, specifically for very large datasets (#3739)
• Improved the visual fidelity of Saturn's rings and its shadow on the planet (#3749)

UI

• Moved the map of Earth from the night sky panel into the GeoLocation panel and add the ability to search for features on other planetary bodies (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#184)
• Added a confirmation dialog to some property settings that are irreversible, like disabling the mouse input (#3730)
• Correctly reflect in the user interface when navigation and time controls are disabled during recording playbacks (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#175)
• Added a new tab to the ScreenSpace renderables panel to add a browser with a specific webpage (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#177)
• Added the functionality to hide panels at lower visibility levels. Hide the ScriptLog unless the visibility is set to "Advanced User" (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#186)
• Improved the keybinds panel to show all keys bound to a specific key instead of needed to manually switch between Shift, Alt, and Ctrl keybindings (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#182)
• Improved the handling of text fields that are too long by displaying hover tooltips that show the full name of, for example, scene graph nodes (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#188)

Content

New Assets

• Added a new asset for 3I/ATLAS
• Added a new asset with an action for locking temporal layers (#3760)

Updates to existing Assets/Profiles

• Updated the temporal night time layer on Earth as the previous was no longer working
• Changed GUI naming and coloring for 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov and added labels for both
• Removed Plutos Keplerian trail as the new kernels are now reaching back to 1549 (#3726)
• Renamed Galactic Line/Band to equator and updated their identifiers (#3737)
• Added a longitude/latitude grid to Earth (#3059)
• Added missing absPath() in the slidedeck example
• Fixed the Sun glare to use the correct billboarding for fisheye rendering

Content creation

• ContiguousMode in RenderableOrbitalKepler is now an AdvancedUser property

API

• Added the camera view direction information to the camera topic (#3741)

Bug Fixes

• Occasionally, the camera was moved outside the universe when rotating around Earth (#3497)
  • Important: If you are using the MRF cache, you need to delete the mrf_cache/Earth/Height Layers/Terrain_tileset folder
• The JWST profile failed to load
• The Euclid profile failed to load
• The Messenger profile failed to load
• It was not possible to load the user interface on a different device (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#187)
• Shift-clicking the enabled checkbox for scene graph node caused the immediateness to get stuck (#3744)
• The info button in the kebab menu of the current scene graph was not visible (#3735)
• When the Lua console was open, any keystroke was still being used by the main user interface (#3649)
• The GanymedePosition scene graph node was placed in the incorrect folder in the Juice profile
• The names for many profiles in the meta information was incorrect (#3743)
• The opacity slider for the Milky Way galaxy was inoperable
• The quick adjust slider in the time panel was broken (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#176)
• The "All globes" illumination was not actually applied to all globes (#3729)
• It was not possible to focus the camera on Charon
• The Local Dwarf Groups were using a wrong color mapping
• It was not possible to pick a text value from the script log in the Profile editor (#3620)
• The menu bar on MacOS was incorrectly set, causing crashes
• It was not possible to use relative paths in a GeoJSON texture (#3761)
• The planets sonification was crashing when no planets were available
• The documentation for RenderablePlaneSpout and RenderableSphereSpout was missing
• The min/max values for the transform matrix of a RenderableModel were set incorrectly (#3746)
• When calling setPropertyValue with a 0 second duration, the postscript was not called
• Some long tooltip descriptions were not correctly broken across lines (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#180)
• It was possible to drag a hidden window from just below the menu bar (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#183)
• Exoplanet globes were producing warning messages when they only had a single solid color (#3728)
• Exoplanet globes were producing warning messages when MRF caching was enabled
• Image layers based on PNG and JPG were producing excessive warning messages when MRF caching was enabled
• Using the toggleFade function was printing an error message even though there was no error condition
• The Video module had an enabled property that was unused

Features

• Added the functionality to automatically choose a discrete graphics card over an integrated graphics card on laptops that have both
• Improved the rendering of orbital trajectories, specifically for very large datasets (#3739)
• Improved the visual fidelity of Saturn's rings and its shadow on the planet (#3749)

UI

• Moved the map of Earth from the night sky panel into the GeoLocation panel and add the ability to search for features on other planetary bodies (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#184)
• Added a confirmation dialog to some property settings that are irreversible, like disabling the mouse input (#3730)
• Correctly reflect in the user interface when navigation and time controls are disabled during recording playbacks (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#175)
• Added a new tab to the ScreenSpace renderables panel to add a browser with a specific webpage (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#177)
• Added the functionality to hide panels at lower visibility levels. Hide the ScriptLog unless the visibility is set to "Advanced User" (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#186)
• Improved the keybinds panel to show all keys bound to a specific key instead of needed to manually switch between Shift, Alt, and Ctrl keybindings (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#182)
• Improved the handling of text fields that are too long by displaying hover tooltips that show the full name of, for example, scene graph nodes (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#188)

Content

New Assets

• Added a new asset for 3I/ATLAS
• Added a new asset with an action for locking temporal layers (#3760)

Updates to existing Assets/Profiles

• Updated the temporal night time layer on Earth as the previous was no longer working
• Changed GUI naming and coloring for 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov and added labels for both
• Removed Plutos Keplerian trail as the new kernels are now reaching back to 1549 (#3726)
• Renamed Galactic Line/Band to equator and updated their identifiers (#3737)
• Added missing absPath() in the slidedeck example
• Fixed the Sun glare to use the correct billboarding for fisheye rendering

Content creation

• ContiguousMode in RenderableOrbitalKepler is now an AdvancedUser property

API

• Added the camera view direction information to the camera topic (#3741)

Bug Fixes

• Occasionally, the camera was moved outside the universe when rotating around Earth (#3497)
  • Important: If you are using the MRF cache, you need to delete the mrf_cache/Earth/Height Layers/Terrain_tileset folder
• The JWST profile failed to load
• The Euclid profile failed to load
• The Messenger profile failed to load
• It was not possible to load the user interface on a different device (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#187)
• Shift-clicking the enabled checkbox for scene graph node caused the immediateness to get stuck (#3744)
• The info button in the kebab menu of the current scene graph was not visible (#3735)
• When the Lua console was open, any keystroke was still being used by the main user interface (#3649)
• The GanymedePosition scene graph node was placed in the incorrect folder in the Juice profile
• The names for many profiles in the meta information was incorrect (#3743)
• The opacity slider for the Milky Way galaxy was inoperable
• The quick adjust slider in the time panel was broken (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#176)
• The "All globes" illumination was not actually applied to all globes (#3729)
• It was not possible to focus the camera on Charon
• The Local Dwarf Groups were using a wrong color mapping
• It was not possible to pick a text value from the script log in the Profile editor (#3620)
• The menu bar on MacOS was incorrectly set, causing crashes
• It was not possible to use relative paths in a GeoJSON texture (#3761)
• The planets sonification was crashing when no planets were available
• The documentation for RenderablePlaneSpout and RenderableSphereSpout was missing
• The min/max values for the transform matrix of a RenderableModel were set incorrectly (#3746)
• When calling setPropertyValue with a 0 second duration, the postscript was not called
• Some long tooltip descriptions were not correctly broken across lines (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#180)
• It was possible to drag a hidden window from just below the menu bar (OpenSpace/OpenSpace-WebGui#183)
• Exoplanet globes were producing warning messages when they only had a single solid color (#3728)
• Exoplanet globes were producing warning messages when MRF caching was enabled
• Using the toggleFade function was printing an error message even though there was no error condition
• The Video module had an enabled property that was unused

You can download pre-built binaries from here or find more information on our homepage.

Features

• The entire user interface of OpenSpace is reworked to be more user friendly and provide more flexibility when using the software (#3608)
  • Better organization of the scene menu and the properties contained within it
  • All windows are now resizable and dockable
  • Complete control over which buttons are shown on the toolbar
  • Added support for internationalization of the front-end text
  • A new notification system informing of warnings and errors
  • The Getting Started Tour now is displayed automatically the first time OpenSpace is started on a computer
  • A new panel designed for Night Sky shows
  • Support for a greater range of dates
  • Redesign and future-proofing of all aspects of the user interface
• Added a new webpage "ShowComposer" accessible through the user panels or opening a new browser to (http://localhost:4680/showcomposer) with the ability to create custom interfaces for specific shows
• The documentation page (https://docs.openspaceproject.com) has been overhauled and now contains a lot more information to both present existing assets in OpenSpace, as well as example files helping the creation of new datasets
• It is possible to store the profile and configuration that were used for the last start of OpenSpace from the Launcher (#3410)
• Adding support for sending Telemetry about OpenSpace using the opensoundcontrol protocol, making data available for Sonification purposes (#3461)
• The OpenSpaceData folder that can contain optional maps has now been moved from living next to the OpenSpace installation to be being place inside the user folder with the name globebrowsing (#3567)
• When using the Z and X keys, the sensitivity change now increases gradually (#3064, #3065)
• Exoplanets
  • Add the ability to show a label for added Exoplanet Systems (#3318)
  • Each exoplanet now has a color layer indicating their size (terrestrial, super-earth, neptune-like, or gas giant and larger) (#3412)
  • Add the option to specify a default texture for added exoplanets (#3353)
  • The entire exoplanet generation logic is now accessible (and modifiable via a Lua script
• Add the movement of stars according to their proper motion if velocity information is included in the star datasets (#3561)
• Add the ability to drag and drop WMS files to add them as a layer to the current anchor node
• Add the ability to drag and drop an entire folder, which will add all files contained within
• Make it possible to feather the border frame color of ScreenSpace objects
• Add support for correction meshes created by the ScalableSDK (sgct/sgct#101)
• Add support for sending OpenSpace windows via the NDI library (sgct/sgct#102)
• Improvements to the logging of elements in the ScriptLog (#3389)
  • The contents of actions that are triggered are no longer stored in the script log file
  • Added a new option VerboseScriptLog to the openspace.cfg to re-enable the old behavior and include a lot of more information in the script log
• Add the ability to configure the horizontal field of view per window (#3584)
• Cleanup and simplify the properties in RenderableGlobe (#3408)
  • Restructure "general properties" into shadow mapping and regular ones
  • Add values that could not be set from parameters (e.g. from asset or script)
• Add the ability to control the horizontal field-of-view for each window individually instead of providing a single slider. The old slider in the RenderEngine has been removed in favor of a new Windowing group inside the RenderEngine (#3584)
  • Add the ability to prevent windows from taking screenshots (sgct/sgct#87)
• Geodectic position and distance of the camera now correctly displays for non-globe objects
• The version request at the start of OpenSpace now also transfers the profile name unless the profile is user profile
• When hiding the user interface with F1, an informative text is now displayed explaining how to bring the user interface back into view
• Add support to mirror any window horizontally or vertically
• The DebugModule now also shows the node ID in the frame information overlay
• Add the ability to offset the Debug statistics window in addition to scaling it

Launcher

• The Launcher application now respects the operating system's darkmode settings when in the profile editor and Window Configuration editor (#3369)
• Add support for subfolders to better organize both configurations and profiles
• The Profile editor now uses a normal Save dialog instead of the previous need to use the duplicate + renaming paradigm
• Add a submenu to the "New" button to either duplicate an existing profile or create a new empty profile (#3601)
• Add a new Notification section to the Launcher window in which important information will be shared (#3595)
• Improve the graphic design to indicate when a button is currently unavailable
• Change the layout of the Window Configuration editor to provide more explicit options which window should have Overlay rendering and 3D rendering
• Add a new panel to the Profile editor to control which WebUI button appears on the taskbar (#3569)
• User-generated profiles and window configurations now show a small "U" icon in the profile selection (#3611)
• Add keyboard shortcuts for adding and removing windows in the Window Configuration editor
• Add the option to select the tilt of a fisheye rendering
• Make it possible to pick window blitting when selecting a projection (#3568)
• The time picker in the Profile editor is now a tabbed window (#3562)

UI

• Add a new hint to determine if a scene graph node should focusable and only provide user interface elements to focus on scene graph nodes that are focusable (#3508)
• The first time OpenSpace is started on a computer, the Getting Started Tour will now appear automatically
• Fix a large amount of user interface accessibility issues (#3088, #3089, #3090, #3092, #3094, #3096, #3097, #3098, #3099, #3100, #3101, #3103, #3441, #3443, #3616)
  • Improve the contrast ratios for many elements for better visibility
  • The entire user interface is now keyboard navigable
  • More consistent coloring of user interface elements
• Add support to enable future localization of the user interface
• Add the ability to specify a background color and a text color for actions buttons (#3551)
• Add a new optional parameter to overwrite an existing session recording file
• Change the visibility level setting of the "on-screen version" setting to "User"
• Improve the naming of the GeoJSON component in the RenderableGlobe (#2883)
• Add a new iput field in the window control to change the default field-of-view for fisheye images

Content

New Profiles

• Added a new "Today's Sun" profile that shows the state of the magnetic field around the Sun
• Add new calibrator asset and profile (closes #2268)

New Assets

• Add Kuiper constellation of satellites
• Add a new asset defining the supergalactic transformation matrix once and reusing it in other assets
• Add new assets for defined new coordinate systems related to Earth's magnetosphere (#3392)

New Maps

• Add Esri Wayback layers (#3382)
• Add WMS layer for Titan HiSAR map (#3565)
• Add new maps for the Globe representation of Phobos (#1397)

Updates to existing Assets/Profiles

• Remove the default_full profile as it has outlived its usefulness and it now can be replicated user-side through the Profile editor
• Updates to the nightssky profile
• Apply the new Focusable tag to many objects in the scene that are not meant to be focussed on
• Remove the touch profile as it did not have a coherent use-case apart from showing a now-defunct user interface
• Remove Up arrow keybind and retire the property_helper and renderable_helper assets (#3604)
• Change the tint of the SunGlare to be more yellow (#3459)
• Neptune and Uranus now use the correct period length
• Unify the earth_satellite and earth_satellites tags
• Remove the Indian anti-satellite debris asset as the last of its known debris has reentered the atmosphere (#3529)
• Updated the exoplanet, exoplanet candidate, and brown dwarf datasets of the Digital Universe
• Updated the exoplanet data set with the newest data from the Exoplanet Archive
• The Digital Unierse assets have been rearranged and reordered in the user interface (#3460)
• Update SPICE kernel data for the Rosetta spacecraft (#3370)
• Utilize the toggleFade function in more actions to ensure better functionality
• Add a new Sweden-based WMS caching server to access Earth map layers
• Split up the JWST and Lagrange points assets into smaller assets (#3432)
• Change the color of the constellation boundaries (#3458)
• The Milky Way galaxy object is now parented to the root, making it not disappear when SPICE information for the solar system runs out (#3232)
• Add missing tags for the Moon (#3406)

Content creation

• Add new ScreenSpaceInsetBlackout class that can be used to display a configurable black-out frame allowing to overlay secondary projectors onto the dome surface (#3657)
• Add new ScreenSpaceRenderableRenderable class that allows the rendering of any Renderable class into a screenspace object using a custom camera location (#3575)
• Add the ability to add base64-encoded images from webpages as ScreenSpaceImages
• Add the ability to specify longitude and latitude subdivisions in RenderableSphericalGrid (#3494)
• Add horizons-based NewHorizons asset
• Move Voyager and Pioneer horizons files into separate folders
• ...

You can download pre-built binaries from here. Or find more information on our homepage.

You can find a list of breaking changes against 0.19 here.

Features

• 2024 Digital Universe Data Update
• Add new TileProvider to select tile providers based on the date and apply to VIIRS Joint Polar Satellite System (#3350)
• Provide better error messages when failing to load an asset due to verification failures
• Add support for model vertex colors (#3346)
• Reduce the number of capture threads used by SGCT to optimize image sequence framerate
• Add server name to parallelpeer authentication, used as unique identifier on wormhole server
• Add the ability to scale the debug statistics graphs
• Move the statistics and frame info rendering from the RenderEngine into the debugging module ( #1248)
• Update Ghoul to get more information on when WMI queries fail (#3330)

UI

• Add possiblity to sort SGNs in GUI based on numerical value
• Small Node Popover menu refactor

Content

New Assets

• Add an example asset to show the current in-game time in a screenspace object (#3312)
• Add new advanced example assets for the point cloud rendering

Updates to existing Assets/Profiles

• Add Down and Up keybinds to set the time to realtime and "now" respectively (#3275)
• Fix spelling mistake in Haumea model
• Fix a warning from hdf.asset due to a missing dataset parameter (#3343)
• Removed the version numbers from asset files as they were unused and inconsistent
• Remove the large data files from the URLSynchronization example files to make the file loadable
• Use the correct way to scale the Eiffel tower educational asset

Content creation

• Add the ability to specify DashboardItems for ScreenSpaceDashboards in assets.
• Make the 'Layer's specification in RenderableGlobe optional
• Improve error messages and export DashboardItem documentation
• Adds a task to generate a raw volume (used in for example RenderableTimeVaryingVolume) from a CSV file.
• The default for actions is now to have them not local (#3194)

Lua

• Add Lua function to calculate the number of seconds between dates and use it in assets (#3332)
• Add a new Lua function to create debug axes for the current focus node

Bug Fixes

• Fix a multithreaded access to SPICE that could cause a crash on startup (#3345)
• Fix a bug where the keyboard shortcuts would no longer be displayed
• Correctly consume char-based keyboard callbacks in the CEF module (#3290)
• Prevent crash when starting without any enabled audio devices (#3329)
• Fix bug with resizing the WorldWideTelescope window
• Fix an issue with the point cloud rendering texture not being rendered when the texture file path is updated during runtime
• Fix a faulty example GUI path in the point cloud example files
• Generate the framebuffer for screenspace rendering without mipmapping as it handles transparency poorly
• Fix parsing TLE files with CRLF line endings on unix (#3326)
• A non-main dashboard is now correctly displayed when adding it as a propertyowner to a ScreenSpaceDashboard
• Fix an issue where the scale for ScreenSpaceDashboards was always enforced to be 1

You can download pre-built binaries from here. Or find more information on our homepage.

You can find a list of breaking changes against 0.19 here.

Features

• Reworked the https://docs.openspaceproject.com documentation and moved all static information from the documentation folder to the "Reference" section on that webpage
• Add a new property to control whether the global blackout factor should apply to the master rendering (#2923)
• Add a persistent file used to store user settings such as which profile or configuration file to use (#2931)
• Shifting the keybindings (closes #1055)
  • Add new action to instantly toggle all trails
  • Instead of 'H', the 'T' keybind now toggles all trails
  • Shift+T instantly toggles trails
  • Instead of 'W', the 'B' toggles the blackout of the rendering
• Improve the responsiveness of the user interface when dragging and dropping files (#3289, #3325)
• Add support for audio playback using local MP3 files (#3085)
• Add support for a new MPCDI format used by COSM/E&S using https://tools.openspaceproject.com (#3042)
• Point Cloud rendering overhaul
  • A total overhaul of the way point clouds are rendered (#2932)
  • Add ability to load labels directly from CSV/SPECK for PointClouds (#2989)
  • A more intuitive way of handling the scaling of points that works more reliable in multi-projector setups (#2994)
  • Add the ability to interpolate positions and values for points of different timesteps (#3002)
  • Add the rendering of outlines for points (round, square, or bottom) (#3044)
  • Add the ability to specify comments in CSV files
  • Add individual textures to points that are specified by columns in the data values (#3068)
  • Add settings for the use of texture compression to reduce overall memory footprint
  • Support for orientation data point cloud data (#3168)
• Partial overhaul of the star renderer (#3164)
  • Remove previously unused rendering method using point point spread functions
  • Stars are now represented by two textures that are layered on top of each other, each with their own settings to tweak the look and feel of the stars
• Add an explicit layer order to globe layers rather than relying on insertion order (#3281)
  • Added zIndex parsing for .info files (#3298)
• General improvements for trail rendering
  • Improve the performance of the trail rendering (#3287)
  • RenderableOrbitalKepler trail now shows the entire trail of an object properly (#2964)
  • Trail fading controls have been improved. Objects now have separate controls to determine the overall length of the trail and the percentage of the total that should be faded out (#1067, #2072, #2235)
  • Trajectory trails now goes through the spacecraft when using AccurateTrailPositions (#625)
  • RenderableOrbitalKepler (Asteroids and satellites) can now be rendered as both trails and points (or both at once (#1212, #1472)
• Remove support for the deprecated XML configuration file format in favor of JSON-based configuration files. A converter is available at https://tools.openspaceproject.com
• File updating
  • The HttpSynchronization now keeps track of files downloaded, speeding up resuming of partial downloads at startup (#2587)
  • The UrlSynchronization now has an option to limit download rates to, for example only download new satellite trajectories once per day (#2586)
• Show warnings and error messages on the loading screen (#2941)
• Add log rotation to the log file and the script log, keeping the last 5 by default (#2995)
• Add the ability to drag-and-drop a video file to add it as a ScreenSpaceRenderable (#2988)
• Change the navigation state format from Lua to JSON and add the current simulation time to the state. Add the ability to set the navigation state in the profile editor based this file (#3023, #3078)
• Allow transparency for movies (#2792)
• ScreenSpaceRenderables are now affected by the RenderEngine's blackout factor, hue, value, saturation, and gamma values. It is possible to ignore the blackout factor (#2868, #3293)
• Add new environment variable to control the location of the MRF cache. If it is not provided, but OPENSPACE_GLOBEBROWSING is, it is stored in a mrf_cache subfolder instead
• Move the local bookmarks file from data to the user folder
• Commandline
  • Remove the ability to specify a generic Lua script as a commandline argument
  • Add the ability to set selected individual commandline options instead
  • Add the ability to override the openspace.cfg file by providing an openspace.cfg.override file
• Add a new property to control how long the fading takes when jumping between screen graph nodes
• Allow the SessionRecording subsystem to write a file outside of the user/recordings/ folder (#3150)
• Make the co-rotation of the camera dependent on the bounding sphere rather than interaction sphere (#3017)
• Move the global customization script from the scripts folder to the user folder (#3198)
• Add the ability to limit camera the camera movement to only orbit around a node's "up" axis (#2874)
• General performance improvements when starting OpenSpace (#3142)
• Add the ability to have the idle rotation to orbit around a node's "up" axis (#2916)
• Remove the ability to set alpha channel for windows
• Remove ability for external control ports (#80)
• Remove unused loading screen progress bar as it does not show an accurate estimation of times and was rarely used
• Increase the default value for linear rotation speed of the automated camera path navigator (#2584)
• Add the ability to export the focus node's model matrix in an ASCII session recording
• Show the amount of downloaded data as soon as the download is started (#2460)

Launcher

• Add a new control panel to the main window to control the contents of the new persistant storage
• Add a search and filtering to the profile assets editor (#2623)
• Add tooltip descriptions in the launcher for window configurations (#2475)
• Harmonize naming of accessing the script log in the launcher
• Automatically scroll to the bottom of the script log list by default (#3268)

UI

• Add more options for the focus menu (#167)
  • Add some initial buttons for flying
  • Add a focus button
  • Add a section with settings
  • Make the zoom-to button work for any node and provide a tooltip hint
• Add the ability to create new custom user panels by placing them in the user folder or providing a URL
• Add a "Quick Access" entry in the Scene menu to provide access to featured nodes (#174)
• Add new settings settings to exoplanet panel (#163, #1440, #2943)
  • Add checkboxes for habitable zone and show uncertainty of orbits
  • Add tooltip information explaining the different settings
  • Prevent errors when no systems are added
  • Add setting for 1 AU size ring
  • Add tags that can be used to set object visibility from UI
  • Add module property for hiding/showing orbiting uncertainty disc
  • Add tag for 1 AU ring and change color to something that's different from orbits
  • Add property for circle color
• Add a new button to open the GUI in an external browser (#182)
• Add settings for the jump-to functionality (#3080)
• The geoposition panel layout has been overhauled to make it more user-friendly
• Improve information in Node Meta panel to be more clear (#154)
• The "Show only enabled" option in the Scene menu should show only visible nodes (#160)
• Improve search functionality in the the Scene menu and add the ability to show hidden nodes (#3082)
• Show a timer for how long time left in camera path (#2665)
• Remove duplicated UI code and make "Browser" and "Remote" versions of the UI to be the same (#168)
• Update icons to use the react-icons package instead of online resources (#2794)
• Always show all nodes in ImGui, even if SGN has guiHidden property is true

Content

New Profiles

• Add a new profile for the Euclid mission (#2970)
• Add a new profile for the BepiColombo mission (#3000)

New Assets

• Add a new asset showing the Tiangong space station
• Add two more joystick controller assets
• Add a new asset to show a text marker for the moon (#2831)
• Add assets to provide with default colormaps (#2985)
• Add asset showing only the Big Dipper constellation (#3157)
• Add time reversal and sidereal actions (#3159)
• Add new asset showing the historical epicycle concept (#2518)

New Maps

• Add temporal map layer that presents the imagery from the VIIRS instrument on NOAA21
• Add new map layer showing the last 5000 years of eclipses (#3069)

Updates to existing Assets/Profiles

• Update the orientation of the ISS to be correctly along the trajectory for +/- 1 day of the current day
• Overall Layers maintenance (#2917)
  • Separate layers for the Moon and Earth
  • Provide separate assets for Utah, Sweden, and New York servers
  • Add new layers structure for Mars and Europa
  • Add layers assets for Mercury and Enceladus
  • Add more layer assets for all servers
  • Rename Venus Utah cloud combo layer asset
• Update dataset for the solarsystem small body database (asteroids and comets mostly) (#3291)
• Update the exoplanet dataset (#3301)
• Update Star position to match the star locations in the global bookmarks file (closes #3258)
• Add a mission timeline file to the JUICE mission (#2823)
• Update the Voyager kernels to reach year 2100 (#2790)
• Update faulty tags for Charon and update some other Pluto moon tags for consistency
• Global pass over all a...

This release actually happened on October 16th, 2023.

Content

• Use the local image layer for Europa by default
• Add the ability to specify a custom shader for the RenderableGalaxy class

Bugfixes

• Temporarily fix disappearing tiles on globe surfaces by disabling frustum culling
• Fix naming mixup between umbral and penumbral shadow
• Fixed an issue with the atmosphere shader code on Mac platforms

Features

• Add the ability to show a border around ScreenSpaceRenderables
• Add a trigger property to delete a GeoJSON component
• Added the option to disable roll and zoom for during interaction (#2866)
• Add the ability to specify the angular size of the Sun in the atmosphere
• Add the ability to fade in and out RenderableFieldLinesSequences

Launcher

• Update example in openspace.cfg to use correct pos instead of windowPos

User interface

• Prevent checkbox from shrinking for profiles with long name (#2804)
• Fix issue where user interface icons would not show up when starting OpenSpace without an internet connection (#2794)
• Fix issue so that objects are only disblaed on fade to 0 if the checkbox was actually clicked (#2873)
• Revert the accidental style change of the settings buttons causing them to be darker

Content

New Assets/Profiles

• Add mission file for the JUICE mission (#2823)
• Add a new asset showing the eclipse shadow cone in the Earth/Moon system
• Add "mission" file giving access to all eclipses between 1900 and 2100
• Add new asset showing a text marker for the Moon (#2831)
• Add radial grids showing a comparison between the Earth ecliptic plane and the Moon's orbital plane
• Add GeoJSON files showing the paths many eclipses of this century
• Add an asset that shows the corona of the Sun during the last US eclipse in 2017

New Profiles

• Add a new eclipse profile with new assets

Updates to existing Assets/Profiles

• Update faulty tags for Charon and update other Pluto Moon tags for consistency

Content creation

• Add a new Renderable to show the shadow cone between two celestial bodies

Lua

• Add new function that resets the camera back to the start position (#2825)
• Add new function to remove all loaded assets (#2812)

Bug Fixes

• Fix issues that would prevent scripts from being executed twice in a dome environment, that would break stateful actions (#2872)
• Fix an issue where the start time would not be set correctly when starting a profile paused (#2826)
• Fix crash when trying to start a profile with a navigation state camera settings
• Fix issue where scripts from the Additional Scripts dialog would not be added in the order of the list, but in selection order instead (#2862)
• Fix issue where the Sun and Moon were not layered correctly during an eclipse
• Fix issue where the Apollo 17 insignia would not show up correctly
• Fix issue with fisheye configurations created through the window configurator (#2818)
• Fix issue where a non-square image would be shown at a wrong aspect ratio (#2815)
• Prevent crash on AMD cards when trying to upload textures with MipMapping enabled (#2843)
• Fix potential crash in the RenderableShadowCylinder
• Fix issue that would ping the camera to infinity when trying to jump to an object with a bounding sphere of 0
• Fix issue that prevented the action to hide all constellation lines from working
• Improve quality of error messages when loading illformed GeoJSON file
• Fix issue where trying to include an invalid image as a screenspace image would produce infinite error messages
• Fix issue where transparency for movies would not work (#2792)
• Fix issue that would cause GeoJSON rendering from not working on some graphics cards
• Make the loading of GeoJSON files more flexible by allowing .json files (#2797) and allowing null geometries that will no longer fail, but instead produce an error (#2811)
• Update offline Mars map to fix 180 degree offset
• Fix potential crash when no shadow caster was specified in an eclipse scenario
• Fix issue that would cause many scene graph nodes from now being deinitialized correctly (#2851)
• Fix crash when flying to navigation state with non-existing anchor
• Prevent crash when the cache folder is left in an inconsistent state after the application closes (#2850)
• Prevent rendering errors in the galaxy rendering when minimizing the window (#2852)
• Fix crash that would occur when trying to delete an asset that is also a root asset
• Fix issue that prevented the Voyager 1 and 2 trails from showing up
• Fix issue where the educational asset of the Statue of Liberty was located at the wrong place (#2787)
• Fix issue that would be raised when trying to create an identifier from non-ASCII characters
• Allow negative values for KeplerTranslation that wrap around correctly (#2784)

Features

• Add the ability to customize the complexity of the user interface by choosing the visibility level of settings to determine how many of the properties are visible. The visibility settings can be set from the openspace.cfg file or by specifying an environment variable OPENSPACE_LEVEL. (#166)
• Toggling objects in the scene menu will now fade them in and out over a given time, rather than toggling them instantaneously. The default duration can be changed in the Setting / OpenSpace Engine / Fade Duration (#1827)
• Add the ability to add videos to globes, sphere, and planes. The videos can be played back at their native speed or stretched to cover arbitrary time ranges. The data/asset/examples/video asset files include examples of how to use this feature. (#2608)
• A complete redesign of the documentation generated by OpenSpace. The new documentation now includes more information, is a lot easier to navigate, and includes links to other important sources of information. It can be found in the same location as before under documentation/index.html (#2604)
• Include a new technique to display GeoJSON files on globes. This feature can be used to render line strips and polygons onto the surface of any planet. (#2595)
• Add a new GUI for ongoing missions that provides information about mission duration and milstones. This is a first step towards making mission profiles more accessible to users without prior knowledge (#2603)
• Add a new user interface that can be toggled through the ... menu in the bottom right that is a Getting Started Tour to teach new OpenSpace users how the navigation system works and how to operate the different settings in the menus (#2189)
• Replace the previous caching method for GlobeBrowsing layers with an MRF-based cache. This allows the caching of any remote layers locally on the computer. (#929)
• Fade out stars and other objects in atmosphere during daylight (#1148)
• SkyBrowser
  • Add the ability for the image inset to have both sharp or rounded corners (#2029)
  • Add the ability to the Skybrowser to drag and drop images to change their order in the viewer
  • Add the loading of a hash for WWT image files and automatically force a redownload of the files if the hash has changed
  • Move the wwtdataimages location into the sync folder (#2115)
• Various performance optimizations
  • Move calculations for bounding sphere to only be executed during a full sweep, which improves overall performance (2726)
  • Switch multiple OpenGL calls to a single call for increased efficiency in the asteroid rendering (#2724)
  • Improve the performance of the SkyBrowser for both rendering and image loading
  • Add a property to make it possible to set if the browser display copies should animate while the target is moving (#2773)
• Add the ability to instantaneously jump to the end point of a path (#2568)
• Add the ability to fade out a model that consists of multiple components (#2550)
• Add the ability to provide both minimum and maximum distances in which the camera can be relative to the current focus node. This also adds the ability to disable the limit entirely (#2570)
• Add the ability to select individual constellations (#1682)
• Add support for other file formats for general pertubation information, in particular OMM KVN style (#1778)
• Add the ability to disable the automatic slowdown when the camera approaches the surface of a planet in order to provide a flight that has a constant linear velocity (#2150)
• Add the option to invert the direction of the camera during an idle behavior. This can be achieved both through a separate property that inverts the direction and also by allowing negative speed factors (#2379)
• Add new configuration file that also adds 3D graphics to the UI window (#2530)
• Enable highlighting of lines in grids (#1683)
• Automatically abort an ongoing shutdown when interacting with the mouse or the keyboard (#2393)
• Add the ability to disable mouse input (#2361), zoom and roll for touch interaction, and keybindings (#2238)
• Expose the ambient intensity lighting value for globes as a property
• Add the ability to configure the Console key through the openspace.cfg (#2573)
• Add an enable/disable property to toggle the use of a TimelineRotation (#1607)
• Expose the SGCT statistics information through a property in the RenderEngine (#2195)
• Update Spice repository

Launcher

• Add info tooltips to profile dropdown
• Add the ability to edit previously created configuration files through the editor (#2574)
• Changes to the configuration editor with regards to the behavior of the GUI portion of the window and the 3D rendering. There is now a combobox in the editor to specify how the different windows should behave (#2531)
• Option to specify a scene graph node in profile editor camera dialog to start the camera at the given scene graph node (#2227)
• The properties panel now makes use of the script log dialog (#2253)
• Allow the script log dialog to return multiple scripts
• Replace profile actions/keybind editor button with single close button (#2497)
• Rename "Keybindings" panel to "Actions & Keybindings" (#2363)
• Add the ability to open a different scriptlog file when changing the additional scripts (#1545)
• Reduce the forced height of the asset editor, making it possible to resize the editor to increase legibility on low resolution displays (#2547)
• Remove explicit specification of read-only profiles and read-only configuration files. Now every profile and configuration file that is not in the user folder is read-only
• Increase the size of the configuration boxes in the launcher to make files with long names easier to read (#1785)
• Add a display of the version number in the bottom right of the launcher (#2365)

Content

New Assets/Profiles

• Add layer files that use the new AMNH-based WMS server (#2451)
• Add objects that can be used to show the scale of other objects, for example the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge, etc (#2273)
• Add new offline profile that can be used without internet access (#1714)
• Add top dwarf planets (#1712)
• Add Ceres in dwarf planet folder (#2260) (#2261)
• Add assets for the Shepherd moon group of Saturn system (#2157)
• Update existing outer planets SPICE Kernels and adding new moons to outer planets (#2556)
• Add Itokawa model (#1264)
• Add v3 WAC layer for the Moon (#886)
• Add a new empty profile "empty.profile" that can be used as a starting point for custom profiles

New Profiles

• Add a new profile showing ESA's JUICE mission (#2155)
• Add new profile to show the Artemis-1 mission (#2597)

New Maps

• Add new 99.5% coverage CTX layer for Mars
• Add new layer for the moon of Triton using Voyager2 information (#2198)
• Add new Mosaic layer from the Lunar Orbiter Mosaic
• Add a new combined clouds-magellan layer for Venus ([#1534](https://github.com/OpenSpace...

Bugfixes

• Fix to a problem that caused the Mars profile to not load correctly
• Fix for an issue that made the some of the options of the configuration helper functions in the openspace.cfg file unusable (#2364)
• Fix to an asset dependecy issue that prevent the JWST asset from being included outside the JWST profile (#2378)
• Fix to an issue that would prevent the FOV slider from working in a rendering+GUI window setup
• Fix to prevent invalid entries for actions and keybindings in the Profile Editor (#2362)
• Fixed and issue where it was possible to interact with a joystick during a camera path or a session recording
• Fix problem with the interaction sphere of scene graph nodes without renderables being unused (#2399)
• Fix issue where the explicit bounding sphere was being ignored (#1899)
• Fixed a typo in the documentation for the RenderableTimeVaryingSphere