Webots PRO Changelog

What's new in Webots PRO R2023a

Mar 27, 2023

New Features:
Added support for any current and upcoming version of Python for robot controllers (#5297).
Added new projection field to Camera, RangeFinder, and Lidar nodes. This field replaces the deprecated spherical field (#5266).
Added a non-interactive terminal for web streaming (#5119).
Added a customizable window for animations to display graphs or other user defined content (#5265).
Enhancements:
Added the support of robot windows for MJPEG streaming (#5272).
Added additional checks for path validity in wizards and save world dialogs (#5350).
Added warning if external mesh used in CadShape node is fully transparent (#5359).
Added warning if external mesh used in Mesh node has more than 100'000 vertices (#5359).
New Robots:
Added a model of the ROSbot robot from Husarion and an obstacle avoidance demo (#5168).
New Devices and Objects:
Added some static animals (cow, horse, deer, sheep, dog, fox, cat and rabbit) and a barn (#4539).
Added a model of the Mpu-9250 IMU (#5168).
Added a model of the RPLidarA2 lidar (#5168).
Added a model of the Astra RGB-D camera (#5168).
New Examples:
Added a sample world showing how to compute the attitude of a robot from IMU sensors (#5256).
Bug Fixes:
Fixed the OpenAI Gym example which was not converging after ENU/FLU conversion (#5581).
Fixed wrong warnings due to SFNode empty flag in the controller (#5430).
Fixed controller restart after crash (#5284).
Fixed the export of Lidar's rotating head to X3D (#5224).
Fixed behavior of WbLightSensor::computeLightMeasurement when spotlight is rotated (#5231).
Fixed the reset of the viewpoint in animation when the follow is activated (#5237).
Fixed a recursion bug in web animation (#5260).
Fixed reset of Lidar memory mapped file in an extern controller restarted during the simulation run (#5305).
Fixed a crash when trying to connect a remote extern controllers while a world is loading (#5310).
Fixed close and resize buttons rendered in black in the RangeFinder overlay if underlying pixel value is inf (#5337).
Fixed error message about missing PROTO declaration when copying and pasting a PROTO node that was just added using the Add Node dialog (#5341).
Fixed the description of base nodes in the Add Node dialog (#5346).
Fixed robot window updates when an extern controller reconnects (#5367).
Fixed regeneration of PROTO nodes derived from a procedural PROTO (#5413).
Fixed processing concatenated messages in default robot window JS code (#5442).
Fixed missing check on required PROTO header (#5453).
Fixed a crash when streaming and deleting a subnode (#5457).
Fixed a crash when converting certain PROTOs to base node (#5460).
Fixed the item selection in the scene tree after a conversion to base node (#5460).
Fixed motor sound glitches when motor was stopped (#5488).
Cleanup:
Removed deprecated windowPosition, pixelSize, type, colorNoise fields of Camera node (#5266).
Dependency Updates:
Upgraded to Qt6.4 on Windows (#5301).

New in Webots PRO R2021b (Nov 12, 2021)

New Robots:
Added a model of the Summit-XL Steel robot from Robotnik (#3121).
Added a model of the MiR100 robot from Mobile Industrial Robots (#3010).
Added a model of the Fabtino robot from REC (#2999).
Added a model of the JetBot robot from NVIDIA (#2951).
Added a model for the Niryo Ned robot (#2925).
New Devices and Objects:
Added a new altimeter device contributed by sishamilton (#3241).
Added a model of the SickS300 lidar (#3122).
Added HingeJointWithBacklash PROTO that extends HingeJoint to model the effect of backlash and a corresponding sample world (#2786).
Added Hinge2JointWithBacklash PROTO that extends Hinge2Joint to model the effect of backlash and a corresponding sample world (#2850).
Added a generic Gear PROTO and a demo showing it being used in a collision-based transmission (#2805).
Added a nice looking FIFA soccer ball PROTO (#2782).
New Samples:
Added a draft Robocup Virtual Humanoid League 2021 environment (#2783).
Add an example that shows an integration of OpenAI Gym with Webots (#2711).
Added a simple room with a Nao robot (#2701).
New Features:
Support http:// and https:// file download and cache for the URL fields of Background, Camera, ContactProperties, ImageTexture, Mesh, and Motor (#2591 and #2787).
Reduced installation package size by using online resources for images, meshes, etc. (#2787). The local URLs to textures and meshes in previous worlds files should be updated to point to online resources, e.g., "textures/carpet.jpg" should be changed to "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cyberbotics/webots/R2021b/projects/default/worlds/textures/carpet.jpg".
Added the wb_supervisor_node_set_joint_position function to artificially set the position of active and passive joints (#3160).
Added the wb_supervisor_node_export_string function which returns a string from which the node is constructed (#2743).
Added the wb_supervisor_node_save/load_state functions that allow partial world reverting to a saved state (#2740).
Added coupled motors feature which allows to control multiple logically linked Motors at once (#2939).
Added the Billboard node. A Billboard node contains children nodes that translate and rotate automatically to always face the viewpoint (#3023).
Added the redColorSensitivity field to DistanceSensor that allows tuning (or even disabling) of the red color sensitivity for an infra-red distance sensor (#3077).
Changed the rendering engine of the streaming viewer and of the animations for WREN (#2769).
Added JavaScript scripting support for Procedural Proto Nodes (#3087).
Enhancements
Altered the collision detection logic for Robot.selfCollision to ignore chains of joints if the intermediary joints all share the same anchor point (#2868).
Allow the Robot node to be added inside the Group node and other nodes derived from the Group node like Transform and Solid (#2732).
Make the external controller check more frequently (and indefinitely) for the simulation (#2442).
Added pose and field tracking functions to improve the performance of getting pose and field data (#2279).
Added contact point tracking functions to improve the performance of getting contact point data (#3162).
Added Supervisor functions to retrieve all the fields of a given node (#3202).
Added the wb_supervisor_node_get_pose function that retrieves an absolute or relative pose. Relative pose is expressed in the coordinate system of another node specified as an argument (#2932).
Allowed the wb_supervisor_node_reset_physics function to reset the physics of solid descendants of the given node (#2742).
Added the dragForceScale and dragTorqueScale fields to WorldInfo which enable to set the order of magnitude of the force/torque to be applied in the interface (#3175).
Significantly improved the performance of the wb_camera_get_image, wb_range_finder_get_range_image, and wb_lidar_get_range_image functions (#3032).
Added an allowedChannels field in the Emitter and Receiver nodes to restrict the channel usage (#2849).
Exposed stopERP and stopCFM parameters in HingeJointParameters that define the local ERP and CFM used by joint limits.
Made the static behavior the default for PROTO files and removal of the tag. Non static cases must be labeled as such using the nonDeterministic tag instead (#2903).
Display magnitude of linear and rotational velocity vectors in the Field Editor, to help monitoring robot displacement (#3209).
Ensure that any node "name" is displayed in the scene tree to help navigation (#3198).
Added a script to convert PROTO files to use Mesh nodes instead of IndexedFaceSet nodes to speed-up loading times, improve PROTO readability and maintenance (#2668).
Converted several PROTO files to use Mesh nodes (#2668).
Added flag to RobotisOp2 that enables the modeling of backlash in the robot (#2881).
Added a version of the RobotisOp2 modeled using Hinge2Joint on the ankles, hips, and neck (#2861).
Made the TIAGo robot more sturdy by increasing the suspensionSpringConstant value (#2876).
Added a stadium_dry background with dry grass to allow Robocup players to distinguish the soccer field from the background (#2874).
Added conversion from PROTO to URDF from the Webots command line (#2885).
Rework of car meshes to have more realistic rear lights for Mercedes Benz, Lincoln, Citroen, BMW and Range Rover models (#2615).
<webots/utils/default_robot_window.h> C include file moved to <webots/plugins/robot_window/default.h> (#2655).
Improve generic robot window (#2655).
Skip updates when the robot window is hidden to not affect the simulation performance.
Add toggle button to choose if the enabling/disabling the graph(s) will also enable/disable the robot device.
Add buttons to enable and disable all the devices with the same type at once.
Add "Settings" tab to choose the refresh rate, disable all the devices (of any type), and enabling recording data from devices when the corresponding tab is not visible.
Improve motor slider visibility by moving it to the left of the graph if the plot is not completely visible.
Split the generic robot window code in different libraries and JS files so that it can be easily reused for custom projects.
Speed up drawing using WebGL (#2854).
Added the HTML robot window for vehicles replacing the deprecated Qt-based robot window (#2602).
Support labels in animations (#3019).
Modernized and improved the animations' player (#2979).
Added support for fonts in the streaming viewer (#2976).
Don't display warnings for recent Intel and AMD graphics cards (#2623).
Added measurement of the load time and average speed factor when using the --log-performance command (#3002).
Simplified the usage of the ros controller (#2822).
Integrated ros_control (activated through the --use-ros-control flag) to allow the usage of a diff_drive_controller and joint_state_controller from the ros_controllers package.
Added an option (activated through the --auto-publish flag) to automatically enable all devices on startup and create the corresponding topics.
Exposed the robot_description ROS parameter (activated through the --robot-description flag) that contains the URDF of the robot.
Improved the URDF naming convention (#2875).
Bug fixes:
Fixed resource leak in simulation server script (#3412, thanks to Luiz Felipe Vecchietti).
Sanitized controller name in MATLAB launcher (#3404, thanks to Bartek Lukawski and Juan Victores).
Fixed bug in Lidar / RangeFinder measurement when hitting an edge (#3230).
Fixed the restart of Webots on Windows after changing the theme or the language from the preferences (#3367).
Fixed instabilities in the box-cylinder collision detection (#3105).
Fixed wrong computation of the asymmetric friction force direction for Cylinder and Box (#3150).
Fixed the return value handling from the webots_physics_collide when the Group node is one of the colliding objects (#2781).
Fixed the conversion from quaternions to Euler angles in the InertialUnit for the ENU coordinate system (#2768).
Fixed a controller crashing after resetting the simulation and changing the controller field value (#3237).
Fixed triangle count for Mesh and IndexedFaceSet when there is a lot of triangles (#3086).
Fixed in the interaction between IndexedFaceSets and distance sensor rays that resulted in the wrong contact point being considered for collision (#2610), affecting TexturedBoxes.
Fixed crash visualizing node properties in Node Editor for nodes in deeply nested PROTO structures (#3109).
Fixed crash when selecting velocities relative to kinematic ancestor Solid node in Node Editor (#3098).
Fixed crash due to invalid SFColor values in PROTO fields by clamping the value and printing a warning in the Webots console (#3218).
Fixed crash triggered by a kinematic simulation involving a PROTO with template regenerable fields (#3227).
Fixed crash occurring when a PROTO having template regeneration fields is used as a Solid.boundingObject (#3226).
Fixed incorrect regeneration of the PROTO nodes inserted in a Solid.boundingObject field (#3226).
Fixed crash where the deletion of an item in a MF field resulted in an endless regeneration which eventually lead to a crash (#3188).
Fixed crash when the top node of a SolidReference was a Transform or a Group (#3039).
Fixed the wireframe rendering badly affected by lighting (#2806).
Fixed external force/torque logic such that the closest dynamic Solid ancestor is picked if the selected one lacks it (#2635).
Fixed a strategy used to find a MATLAB executable in the PATH environment variable (#2624).
Fixed various issues when an extern Robot controller exits without disconnecting and reconnects to the same Robot (#3189).
Fixed start-up of extern controllers in case a remaining temporary folder resulting from a previous Webots crash was still there (#2800).
Fixed broken multithreading in Python controllers due to Python GIL (#3104).
Fixed compilation of default controllers using Qt on Windows (#2718).
Fixed controllers output printed in the Webots console one step too late when running the simulation step-by-step (#2741).
Fixed invalid world loading errors cleared from the console when reverting to the empty world (#2737).
Fixed high DPI support on Windows and Linux (#2631).
Windows: Fixed double-click opening of a world file located in a path with UTF-8 characters (#2750).
Fixed adding textures to a simulation while a streaming-viewer is running (#2704).
Fixed crash applying wb_supervisor_node_add_force on kinematic objects (#3036).
Fixed Supervisor API operations on nodes defined in multiple nested PROTO fields (#3036).
Fixed crash due to Supervisor MF field operations based on negative positions that were not translated into valid indices after resetting the simulation from the same Supervisor controller (#2997).
Fixed wb_supervisor_node_reset_physics not working if during the same step the node is also artificially moved with the Supervisor API (#2991).
Fixed the wb_supervisor_field_get_count function's returned value not updated after modifying the fields from the GUI or from another Supervisor controller (#2812).
Fixed wb_supervisor_node_get_velocity in MATLAB API returning 3 elements instead of 6 (#2764).
Fixed simulation reset
Fixed synchronization of Supervisor simulation reset that was applied after the step and now it is applied at the very end of the step (#2720).
Fixed incorrect position retrieval immediately after resetting nested Transform nodes (#3051).
Fixed reset of Charger energy when the recharging Robot battery is full (#2879).
Fixed Camera image update in controllers after simulation reset (#2725).
Fixed reset of simulations including BallJoint nodes like the Stewart Platform (#2593) and (#3394).
Fixed step button status if simulation is reset from UI when the step button is disabled (#2741).
Fixed bug in the C++, Python and Java API where the Robot.getDevice() methods were returning different objects when passing the same string argument for the device name (#2957).
Fixed the robot_get_urdf function to include leaf nodes in URDF (#2803).
Fixed issue where motor position limits in Hinge2Joint and BallJoint were enforced incorrectly (#2825).
Fixed issue where the hidden field of a BallJoint is not stored in the world file when saving after the simulation has run (#2964).
Fixed Camera.getRecognitionObjects function not available and the return value of CameraRecognitionObject.getPositionOnImage and CameraRecognitionObject.getSizeOnImage in Java API (#2923).
Fixed return value type of CameraRecognitionObject.get_size Python function (#2923).
Fixed detection of scaled objects in the Camera image using the Recognition functionality (#2921).
Fixed Lens distortion (#2961, #3191).
Fixed memory leak in Display image (#2663).
Fixed Display external window not updated when the attached camera image changes (#2589).
Fixed erasing Pen ink on simulation reset (#2796).
Fixed the Pen ink mixed with the background and other ink when the inkDensity is lower than 1.0 (#2804).
Fixed painting with the Pen device on the bottom face of a Cylinder geometry (#2629).
Fixed crash changing the Lidar.type field during the simulation run by requiring to save and reload the world (#2983).
Fixed Lidar.getLayerRangeImage Python and Java functions wrongly returning the full image (#2799).
Fixed visual bug where the Lidar point cloud disappears when out-of-range points are present (#2666).
Fixed update of PointSet subnodes (#2766).
Fixed X3D export of USE nodes linking to DEF nodes declared in PROTO exposed fields (#2687).
Fixed the robot window example (#2639).
Fixed mecanum wheels ContactProperties in YouBot worlds (#3025).
Fixed value of the verticalFieldOfView for the Hokuyo UTM-30LX (#2972).
Fixed RandomBuilding PROTO where different instances generated the same building (#2897).
Fixed PedestrianCrossing PROTO model not correctly displaying the yellow stripes (#2857).
Changed ROS message type published by the Camera Recognition Objects node that now sends a single message including all the recognized objects (#3234).
Changed ROS data type of /supervisor/node/get_type_name service that now uses webots_ros::node_get_name instead of webots_ros::node_get_type_name (#3202).
Fixed incorrect resetting of PointLight nodes (#3345).
Fixed incorrect cleaning of Light node (3374).
Fixed crash provoked by canceling and switching world in the Guided Tour (#3376).
Fixed the path to the python command on macOS (#3402).
Fixed HighwaySign PROTO not displaying the texture (#3407).
Cleanup:
Deleted deprecated DifferentialWheels node (#2749).
Changed structure of the projects/samples/howto directory, so each demonstration is in a dedicated directory (#2639).
Deprecated wb_supervisor_node_get_contact_point, wb_supervisor_node_get_contact_point_node, and wb_supervisor_node_get_number_of_contact_points functions in favor of wb_supervisor_node_get_contact_points (#3162).
Remove the viewpoint_control benchmark that was not working in Webots (#3192).
Dependency Updates:
Upgraded to Qt 5.15.2 on macOS (#2721).
Upgraded to Qt 5.15.2 on Linux (#3089).

New in Webots PRO 7.4.0 (Mar 5, 2014)

New Features:
Default to High Quality rendering
Improved the quality of the X3D export (especially visible in X3Dom)
Merged misc floor prototypes (CheckeredFloor.proto, DecimetricFloor.proto and MetricFloor.proto) into one (Floor.proto). The old ones are deprecated
Refactored arena prototypes (added RectangleArena.proto and CircleArena.proto, deprecated SquareArena.proto)
Added the new generic ros controller in the default controllers
Added support for environment variable definitions and languages settings in a runtime.ini file in controller directory, and used this system for the Nao's naoqisim controller
Added procedural prototypes support (embedded the lua language in prototypes to create simply and cleanly complex nodes)
Added a default manipulator for translating and rotating objects that appears when selecting a top solid
Changed font used in 3D View labels that now includes greek letters
Mac: Added a retro-compatibility toggle to link easily with the libc++ (default) or the libstdc++ (USE_STD_CXX=true) controller libraries (thanks to Simon)
Added 'Details' button in field editor when PROTO nodes are selected that automatically opens the definition file
Added 'Cancel' button in Wizards
Supported infra-red measurements on Display device's textures
Added a new field named 'resolution' for the following nodes: Accelerometer, Compass, DistanceSensor, GPS (previous 'resolution' field has been renamed into 'accuracy'), Gyro, InertialUnit, LightSensor, PositionSensor (and therefore also LinearMotor and RotationalMotor) and TouchSensor
Added a new field named 'rangeResolution' to the Camera node
Upgrade:
Upgraded to Qt 5.2.1
Performance:
Improved behavior of asynchronous controllers.
Improved texture loading time and reduced Webots memory footprint (related with textures)
Bug Fixes:
Improved the VRML specifications strictness related with the 3D rendering
Some of the following modifications can break the 3D rendering setup of your simulations
Fixed the textured rendering in which the Material.diffuseColor was wrongly taken into account
Fixed the global ambient light which was wrongly divided by the number of lights
Clamped the Light.ambientIntensity and Light.intensity fields to the [0, 1] range
DARwIn-OP (thanks to Chase)
Fixed the behavior of the "Make default controller" check box
Fixed link to X11 library of DARwIn-OP with Ubuntu 12.04
Added missing Motion.hpp include file
Nao
Merged the 4 Nao prototypes (Nao_H21_V33, Nao_H21_V40, Nao_H25_V33, Nao_H25_V40) to a single procedural prototype (Nao)
Added the Nao.version field to choose between the "4.0" and the "3.3" versions
Added the Nao.degreeOfFreedom field to choose between the 25 (arms with articulated fingers) and 21 (arms without articulated fingers)
Removed the Nao.cameraFieldOfView from the open fields
Set the default value of the Nao.color to the Nao v4.0 orange (the default color of the v3.3 is lost)
Simplified the camera code by removing the sampler algorithm probably causing camera issues
naoqisim: Increased the nao sleep between the 2 Aldebaran processes starts (thanks to Patrik)
e-puck
Fixed cross-compilation using multiple files (thanks to Hao Ran Liew)
Fixed crash when double clicking on handles in the 3D View
Fixed crash related to Hinge2Joint axis setting
Default min max position values for linear motors displayed in the robot window are now -1 and 1 (were previously like rotational motors, e.g., -pi and pi)
Fixed hidden parameters management of the Hinge2Joint node
Fixed restart of controller when resetting the 'controller' field to the same string from a supervisor (thanks to Adil)
Added automatic validity checks for ContactProperties node's fields
Disabled Add Node dialog box when attempting to insert a device into a 'device' field which is not part of Robot (an info message is now displayed)
Fixed crash at load time caused by an invalid IndexedFaceSet placed into a boundingObject
Resolved Qt warnings for signals WbNode::massPropertiesChanged() and WbNode::positionChangedArtificially() when deleting nodes
Disable manually moving objects in the 3D View if corresponding translation field is not visible in the Scene Tree
Fixed crash when quitting Webots, reverting the world or deleting an objects while manually interacting with the selected solid object in the 3D View
Fixed insertion of objects lifting action with mouse wheel in undo/redo stack
Simulation is paused while showing the save or open world file dialogs to fix graphic update problems and speed up the action
Fixed Slider axis orientation: the orientation was reverted so as to conform with the documentation
Fixed double-click behavior in Add Node dialog when a container item is selected
Fixed content of Webots clipboard when copying text in an external program
Fixed python library compilation on Mac OS X systems using MacPorts (thanks to Conrad)
Added warning issued when inserting an invalid child node in a Transform node which is contained in a boundingObject
Fixed loading errors for PROTO nodes when saving a world in a different project folder
Fixed updates of nested USE nodes (thanks to Jessica)
Fixed crash caused by device-less Propeller nodes (thanks to David)
Fixed spring and damping effects when using small spring and damping constants (thanks to Francesco)
Fixed crash caused by wb_motor_enable_torque_feedback() (thanks to Brian)
Fixed the computation of motor torque feedback
Text editor: Fixed detection of files which are modified by an external application (thanks to Conrad)
Show text editor even if hidden before popping up the modified text file message
Fixed ray collision of Pen and infra-red DistanceSensor with Joint's 'endPoint'
Fixed update of global ODE parameters (e.g., gravity, ERP, CFM) in multi-threaded mode
Awake Solids when global ODE parameters change (thanks to Thierry)
Fixed contact points rendering synchronization
Fixed use of system CLASSPATH when compiling Java controllers from Webots Text Editor
Enable "Save" button after inertiaMatrix insertion, 3D scene zoom, objects' lifting with mouse wheel, and when changing followed solid from View menu
Mac OS X: the ODE physics engine now uses OpenMP, similarly to Windows and Linux.
Fixed distance computation for distance sensors of type 'infra-red' when range is greater than 1 and no obstacle are detected
Fixed mouse cursor icon on Mac OS X when leaving the 3D View
Fixed delayed update of 3D View when deleting a node in the scene tree
Fixed scaling of DistancSensor's frame according to World's lineScale value
Fixed default motor target position when using saved hidden position field values
Fixed crash related to insertion of a boundingObject in a Propeller helix
Fixed python controllers on Mac OS X 10.8 (bug introduced in Webots 7.3.0)
Fixed ALT commands in khr-2hv example on Mac OS X
Fixed Makefiles for compilation of C++, Java and Python wrappers on Mac OS X 10.8
Documentation:
Added instructions to solve e-puck cross-compilation issues on linux 64 bit
Added a second example about the influence of the 'lookupTable' field on DistanceSensor measured values

New in Webots PRO 7.3.0 (Mar 5, 2014)

Added a Propeller node to simulate propulsion of aircraft and ocean vehicles
Added hidden linearVelocity and angularVelocity fields to Solid nodes so as to retrieve initial velocities from the world file
Added hidden position field to allow Joint nodes without JointParameters to retrieve initial positions
Added the hidden prototype parameters translation, rotation and position. This allows you to save and restore a simulation where prototypes have moved from their initial positions and orientations without creating new parameters
Added a warning issued when a Solid node has no Physics node but has a non-empty boundingObject and an upper Solid node containing a Physics node: collisions are ignored in this case
Matlab
Removed the "minimize" argument given to the launcher on other platforms than Windows (thanks to Erik)
Mavericks
Added support for Mavericks (Mac OS X 10.9)
Compiled controllers, libraries and plugins using clang 5.0 and libc++ (rather than libstdc++)
Fixed launcher (double-click on the icon from finder) (thanks to Adil)
Fixed java which had a conflit between the distributed and the OS libzip library
Added semantic tests for project PROTO files when opening the Add Node dialog
Don't disable 'Save world' action after the simulation has started, but make it behave like 'Save As'
Disabled 'Save world' and 'Save text file' actions if no modification occured
Added a single clipboard for the whole application (Scene Tree, Text Editor, and Console) synchronized with the system clipboard
Merged Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All, Undo, ans Redo actions so that they work in Scene Tree, Text Editor or Console based on the selected tool
e-puck: Fixed cross-compilation issues on windows (thanks to Simon)
Add standard keyboard shortcuts for cutting (CTRL+X), copying (CTRL+C), pasting (CTRL+V), and deleting (DELETE) a node in the Scene Tree or 3D View
Fixed crash during the computation of default texture mapping of IndexedFaceSet under special circumstances
Force and torque representations size increase with the WorldInfo lineScale value
Fixed crash related to DistanceSensor (thanks to Pragati)
Fixed crash caused by Cylinders in boundingObjects which are located at the same position
Fixed documentation page opened using the 'Help' toolbar item for the node model names starting with 'P'
Merged toolbars of Scene Tree and View 3D in a single one
Moved 'Import Object' toolbar action in the Add Node dialog
Moved 'Reset', 'Transform', 'Help' and 'Export Object' toolbar actions in the field editor
Extended 'Transform' node functionalities to SFNodes
Fixed exploding spring effect in SliderJoint
Remove capability to create Servo nodes from the GUI
Revisited the IPR controllers in order to have a deterministic behaviour
NAO
Added slots to the model in order to easily add robot extensions
Updated Nao challenge to v1.8
Fixed device identification for Devices placed below a BallJoint (thanks to David)
Redirected ODE messages to Webots console
Refactored the physics plugin' webots_physics_draw() function in order to be able to draw on the 3D view and/or on the robot cameras (thanks to Kevin)
Removed the webots_physics_pre_draw function: the same feature is accessible from the arguments of the webots_physics_draw() function (see Reference Manual)
Modified the webots_physics_draw() function: added 2 arguments (see Reference Manual)
Fixed collision detection of user defined dGeoms in physics plugins
Enabled the multithread version of ODE on Mac OS X (thanks to Mustafa)
Removed duplicate contact points of IndexedFaceSets (thanks to Jesse)
A time step less than 1ms is rounded up to 1ms in the void controller to keep the application responsive
Upgraded to Qt 5.1.1
Fixed motion editor's "fixed step"
Fixed Toggle Line Comment function in Text Editor when the last line of the document is selected (thanks to Andrew)
Prohibited insertion from dialog box of a Geometry node in a boundingObject if one dimension is non-positive
DARwIn-OP
Added slots to the model in order to easily add robot extensions
Merged the Makefiles used for cross-compilation into a single Makefile.include
Improved robustness of the remote control session startup
Improved globally the code indentation
Fixed constness of Robot::keyboardGetKey() and Robot::batterySensorGetValue()
Fixed fallback values of HingeJointParameters and Hinge2JointParameters axis fields when a zero vector is specified: fallback on default value, i.e., 1 0 0
Extended 'Import Object' behaviour in the Scene Tree: allow to import a node in any MFNode fields just after the selected node
Restore field edition behaviour: values should not be automatically updated by Webots while the user is editing
Improved 'Add Node' and 'Transform' dialogs: allow to select a node model by double-clicking on it
Improved the support for ANSI Escape Sequences and CR character in messages printed on the Webots console
Improved error messages concerning PROTO nodes so that they match the Scene Tree structure
Fixed file's title in text editor when deleted externally
Improved the X3D lights export
Stored the Webots version in the header of the Webots model files (.wbt, .proto, .wbo and .wbproj) in order to facilitate automatic upgrade
Removed the dependency of Java programs on make when compiling using the Webots text editor
Fixed viewpoint restoration in orthographic mode (thanks to Andrej)
Removed the useless dependency on swig when recompliling languages controllers (thanks to Erik)
Fixed robot window dialogs z-order on Windows and Linux (thanks to Chase)
Fixed wb_supervisor_field_import_node so that it takes into consideration the insertion position
Changed the returned value of wb_supervisor_get_contact_point() and wb_supervisor_get_number_of_contact_points() (see Reference Manual)
Fixed crash caused by missing mandatory functions when loading a plugin
Fixed crash caused by transformations Robot->Supervisor from the GUI
Fixed compilation issues with swinglet's controller and plugin
Added warnings when Solid mass settings are invalid or insufficient to define inertia (thanks to David)
Implemented integral and derivative gains, in addition to proportional gain, for PID control of motor position
Warning: From now on, please use wb_motor_set_control_pid() instead of wb_motor_set_control_p() (removed) and replace 'SFFloat controllerP' fields by new 'SFVec3f controllerPID' fields.
Added example of Ziegler-Nichols' PID tuning method
Upgraded Java controllers API to Java 1.7

New in Webots PRO 7.2.4 (Mar 5, 2014)

New in Webots PRO 7.2.3 (Mar 5, 2014)

New in Webots PRO 7.2.2 (Mar 5, 2014)

ContactProperties fields softCfm and softErp were renamed softCFM and softERP
Fixed GL rendering on Retina display (thanks to Andrew)
Reintroduced the multithread version of ODE. The number of threads can be set from the preferences dialog. This feature is still disabled for now on Mac OS X.
Removed resize and scale handles acting on protos when dimensions were not specified as proto parameters
Fixed behavior of infra-red distance sensors when using texture transforms (thanks to Joshua)
Improved support of ANSI Escape Sequences in Webots console
Added laptop computer proto (thanks to Guillaume)
Improved video recording function
Use avconv/ffmpeg on all platforms instead of mencoder (Linux/Mac OS X) and Windows API
Use H.264/MPEG-4/AVC encoder and MP4 container on all platforms
Automatically set frame rate to match real-time
Add possibility to create an accelerated movie and to show the current acceleration value on the movie
Add 'acceleration' and 'caption' parameter in wb_supervisor_start_movie function
Rename 'type' parameter to 'codec' in wb_supervisor_start_movie function
Add basic undo/redo functionality for field editing, objects dragging, rotation and resizing
Moved the language source code (C++, Python, Java) from the "projects" to "resources" directories
Text editor: detect external file modification
Display device: Fixed alpha image pasting
Nao
Added nao challenge simulation
Fixed camera bug introduced in Webots 7.2.0 (thanks to Julien, Dominic and Nikolas)
Fixed glitch due to mouse position offset when resizing / rescaling objects by means of manipulators
Fixed crash when changing the orientation of a plane placed in a boundingObject
Improved the save screenshot dialog by using the native dialog appearance
Improved the autonomous vehicle demo by adding traffic lights, traffic signs, cones and textured buildings
Added the capability to export a simulation model to HTML/X3D for web publishing
Added two new fields to the Receiver node: signalStrengthNoise and directionNoise. These fields allow to add noise on the signal strength and emitter direction.
Fixes Java and Python supervisor accessors to contact points
Changed supervisor API functions wb_supervisor_node_get_contact_points()
Warning: From now on, please use wb_supervisor_node_get_number_of_contact_points() and wb_supervisor_node_get_contact_point().
Fixed annoying z-order overlap of some dialog box
Improved Webots file parser's robustness
Increased the distance sensors performance
Replaced advantageously WorldInfo::displayRefresh by WorldInfo::FPS. In most cases, this increase the performance of the run mode
Added examples in projects/samples/howto that illustrate the use of wb_supervisor_node_get_contact_points() and wb_supervisor_node_get_center_of_mass()
Fixed graphical update of the center of mass
Fixed crash related to Geometry insertion in bounding objects (thanks to Guillaume)
Allowed static environment to be used as a joint endpoint (thanks to Jesse)
Added documentation on joint axis default values (thanks to Jesse)
Fixed force control of Hinge2Joint motors (thanks to David)
Enhanced cylinder-cylinder collision (thanks to David)
Upgraded to Qt 5.1.0
Renamed the STOP keyword to PAUSE
Improved main GUI (new set of icons, new customizable style sheet)
Fixed movie recording on some Linux environment (thanks to Fatma)
Fixed syntax highlighing and auto-completion for C API data types in C programs
Added Capsule geometry sample world
Windows: robot windows are raised on top when opening them
Windows: fixed robot window. Minimized them don't decrease the global performance anymore.
Windows: Fixed rights to invoke Qt's lupdate (added a manifest file)
Mac OS X: Restored the Menu items (Preferences / About / Quit) at the regular place

New in Webots PRO 7.2.1 (Mar 5, 2014)

New in Webots PRO 7.2.0 (Mar 5, 2014)

Windows: added a webots.bat batch file to ease the startup of Webots from a DOS console
Fixed rescaling issues
Fixed issues related to solid merging
Fixed crash related to Geometry insertion in bounding objects (thanks to Victor)
Windows: fixed the print out from Python controllers which was not displayed in the Webots console
Add selection shortcut for solid subparts of an object in the 3D window: (Ctrl key) + Alt key + mouse click
Added the model of the human-sized hexapod Mantis robot (thanks to Matt)
Added the model of the Atlas robot (human-sized humanoid)
Introduced new nodes replacing and extending the now deprecated Servo node (please open a support ticket from the Help menu of Webots if you need assistance to convert your simulation models to the new system)
RotationalMotor, LinearMotor, PositionSensor
HingeJoint, SliderJoint, Hinge2Joint, BallJoint
JointParameters, HingeJointParameters, Hinge2JointParameters, BallJointParameters
SolidReference
DARwIn-OP
Refactored the SSH protocol to dialog with the robot (safer, and more robust)
Implemented the servo alarm management
Fixed compilation of controller plugins on Windows (thanks to Chase)
Added a ROS tutorial with detailed build instructions
The ROS joystick example (see projects/languages/ros) has been updated in accordance with the ROS groovy version and catkin, the official ROS build system
Webots build editor can now compile edited source files located below the root of a controller directory
Users can now simply click on touch sensors of bumper type to activate or desactivate them
Exposed the soft ERP and soft CFM parameters in the ContactProperties node. Reducing the soft CFM value will limit the penetration of heavy objects in the ground (see webots/projects/samples/demos/worlds/autonomous_vehicle.wbt example)
Use a multi-threaded version of ODE (thanks to Mustafa)
Multi-robot simulations should run significantly faster on multi-core CPUs
Physics plugins may need to be adapted to handle multi-threading (see documentation in the reference manual)
Added a generic robot window widget for the Inertial Unit device
Nao
Reduced the camera refresh rate to increase the simulation speed
Fixed foot contact loss in some motions (thanks to Ethem)
Added a warning if the simulation is not running in real-time
Improved the behavior of the Choregraph's moveTo box
Fixed hip and ankle roll maximal torques of the Nao V40
Naoqi: Added low-pass filters (InertialUnit and FSR) to smooth stimulis
Reduced the WorldInfo::basicTimeStep to 20 of each simulation using the Nao in order to improve the physics quality
Updated Aldebaran's Naoqi runtime and simulator SDK libraries to 1.14.3.4 (thanks to Julien)
Improved field edition: values are no longer automatically updated by Webots while the user is editing
Use the ODE shared library (rather than static) on Mac OS X
Added 240p, 360p and 480p 16:9 youtube friendly resolutions for making movies
Fixed node indexes in the Node class (in the C++, Java and Python API)
Restored the Motion Editor (accessible from the generic robot window)
Fixed the console automatic scroll down in case of escape characters (thanks to Andrea)
Repaired broken shaders in the high quality rendering mode
PROTO nodes revision
Added support for SFNode and MFNode parameters in PROTO nodes
Added support for nested parameters in PROTO files
e-puck
Robot Window, Remote Control and Uploader
Added possibility to cancel the operation when uploading files
Fixed list of available ports in 'Upload..' dialog after pressing 'Refresh ports' (thanks to Stefan)
Fixed disconnection problems causing subsequent connection failures
automatically stop the remote control and free the port before uploading a file (thanks to Stefan)
Fixed the display of the acclerometer values (thanks to Stefan)
Cross-Compilation
Fixed cross-compilation errors on Windows if Webots installation path contains white space
Model
Updated EPuck.proto model: added two MFNode parameters to equip the robot with additional devices
WARNING: removed floor sensors from the standard EPuck.proto file and modeled in the separate EPuck_GroundSensorsModule.proto file
WARNING: name of ground sensor devices of e-puck robot is changed from 'fs0', 'fs1', 'fs2' to 'gs0', 'gs1', 'gs2'.
Substituted local ratslife EPuck proto with global Webots EPuck proto
Added Pioneer3DX PROTO model
Added a model of the Elisa-3 robot from GCTronic

New in Webots PRO 7.1.2 (Mar 5, 2014)

New in Webots PRO 7.1.1 (Mar 5, 2014)

Added Pioneer3AT proto
DARwIn-OP (thanks to David)
DARwIn-OP robot window, remote-control and cross-compilation are now available (precompiled, working out-of-the-box)
Simulation
Corrected wrong link between the LEDS: BackLedRed, BackLedGreen and BackLedBlue
Set default basicTimeStep to 16ms for each example
Increase camera refresh time to 32ms in example "Soccer" and "Visual_tracking"
Manager static library split into two dynamics libraries, now located in /libraries/darwin and /libraries/managers instead of /lib
Cross-Compilation
Added text-to-speech functions in Speaker module
Improved the string and int field edition (the modification is applied when leaving the editor focus)
Improved the rotation field edition (the vector normalization is no more visible during the edition)
Fixed behavior of 'Add Node' button: new objects are automatically selected and expanded
Added default extension in save screenshot dialog
Adjusted default position of Webots PROTO objects so that they don't half sink in the floor
Added new sample simulation in projects/samples/howto/worlds/sick_terrain_scanning.wbt (thanks to Angelos)
Revision of Find and Replace dialog of the text editor
Fixed problems when searching words with different cases
Fixed problems when both Find dialog and Replace dialog are visibile
Fixed replacing of selected text that doesn't match the searched string
Changed default button activated when pressing the ENTER key on Linux: 'Next' button in Find dialog and 'Replace' button in Replace dialog
Changed 'Replace' button behavior to automatically select the next occurrence of the searched string
Improved availability of old strings used in Find and Replace dialogs
Improved dialogs and feedback messages of the e-puck file uploader
Fixed huge oval drawing of the Display device (thanks to Angelos)
Changed the license registration dialog box to make it clearer (thanks to Christophe)
Fixed the opening of .wbt files from Finder on Mac OS X (thanks to Jimmy)
Revision of Distance Sensor device
Added a generic distance sensor
WARNING: Default type changed from 'infra-red' to 'generic'. The 'infra-red' type of all existing infra-red sensors have to be explicitely set.
Changed behaviour of infra-red distance sensor: now it considers the appearance of the graphic object rather than the appearance defined in the bounding object.
WARNING: Simulations containing infra-red distance sensors may now behave differently. Please contact Cyberbotics support team if you cannot restore them.
Changed the orientation of infra-red distance sensors in e-puck proto
Improved the custom libraries search algorithm (recursive search into the webots/resources directory) (thanks to David)
Refactored the main Makefile.include: CPP_SOURCES and CC_SOURCES have been deprecated. Please use CXX_SOURCES instead
Improved the supervisor API to set fields in order to be applied immediatly rather than on the next physics step
Added an OpenGL tab in the Preferences dialog box (auto setup on the first Webots launch) allowing to reduce some rendering features
Improved the search algorithm of the Robot::robotWindow and Robot::remoteControl fields
Added the support of the servos and of the keyboard into the remote-control API (thanks to David)
Improved the main Makefile.include in order to compile standard targets (release, debug, profile, clean)
Improved the main Makefile.include in order to move all the building files into a 'build' folder

New in Webots PRO 7.1.0 (Mar 5, 2014)

Changed the texture of can object from a beer can to a soda can
Fixed bug with missing physics plugins in the selection window of the scene tree
Fixed bug displaying robot controllers twice for PROTO robots in the controller selection window of the scene tree (thanks to Krzysztof)
Allow users to recompile robot controllers from the Webots IDE for any robot programming contest (thanks to Krzysztof)
Revision of the Physics node setup
The 'centerOfMass' field is now of type MFVec3f (but the GUI allows you to edit at most one row)
If 'inertiaMatrix' is NULL, the inertia matrix of the Solid is the inertia matrix of the bounding object computed around its natural center of mass with respect to the Solid's frame axes
A dialog box allows you to set the 'inertiaMatrix', 'centerOfMass' and the 'mass' as the corresponding values obtained from bounding object based computations.
WARNING: Simulations may now behave differently. Please contact Cyberbotics support team if you need to restore inertial properties of your models.
Fixed the movie creation on Mac OS X when the Webots installation path contains white spaces (e.g. Webots for NAO) (thanks to Chrisantha)
DARwIn-OP (thanks to David)
Simulation
Added Vision Manager in order to use the main image processing tools of the Framework in simulation
Added example Visual Tracking
Updated example Sample to use Manager Vision
Corrected wrong link between Head and Eye LED
Added the two backLED representations of Head and Eye LED (these backLED are not controllable)
Replaced motion 57 by motion 24 in the example 'sample' at the beginning
Improved Gait manager to wait the end of the step before to stop walking
Modified example Sample to be compatible with cross-compilation
Renamed example 'Sample' in example 'Soccer'.
Added showRobotWindow field
Added example Walk
Cross-Compilation
Vision Manager is also available on the real robot
Improved start of the controller, servo movements smoother at startup
Added LED indications (red : robot is initializing / green : robot is ready, controller will start)
Added keyboard functions (a small window appears now on the real robot to catch keyboard inputs when enabling it)
Added 'maxDistance' field to Pen node
Fixed Pen device: the painted point is displayed only on the intersected face of the primitive
Added the wb_robot_get_controller_name() function allowing to get the Robot::controller field content
Added the wb_robot_get_controller_arguments() function allowing to get the Robot::controllerArgs field content
Improved shared libraries management
Removed the arguments of the wbw_init() function (main entry function of the robot window dynamic library)
Added the project/libraries/* directories in the [[DY]LD_LIBRARY_]PATH environment variable to facilitate the use of shared libraries
Build the shared libraries thanks to the controller Makefile (resources/Makefile.include)
Moved the robot window shared libraries into project/plugins/robot_windows
Moved the remote control shared libraries into project/plugins/remote_controls
Updated the e-puck cross-compiler for Mac OS X (now compiled for x86_64 instead of ppc)
Fixed infra-red distance sensor behaviour discarding the color painted on a Shape
Fixed textures not displayed in blimp_lis.wbt and darwin-op.wbt simulation
Improved compatibility with IndexedFaceSet node syntax of VRML 2.0
Added default texture mapping
Used 'coordIndex' as texture coordinate indexes if 'texCoord' is specified but 'texCoordIndex' field is empty
Automatically link the dynamic libraries in project 'lib' folder at run-time
Fixed problem taking screenshots when the simulation is running
Fixed: crash when wb_servo_enable_motor_force_feedback() is invoked on objects (Solid) without Physics node (Thanks to Tim)
Improved the robustness and error messages of the Internet floating license server
Fixed crashed while linking DEF and USE nodes inside nested protos (Thanks to Nico)
Fixed distance sensor issue with the detection of cylinder's caps (Thanks to Krzysztof)
Upgraded mingw gcc to version 4.7.2 on Windows