Listen to this article

Open Robotics, the organization behind the popular Robot Operating System (ROS), has issued the second long-term release of its Ignition simulator. Code named “Fortress,” this is the sixth major release of the Ignition Gazebo simulation software, following Edifice, Dome, Citadel, Blueprint and Acropolis. Edifice was just released in March 2021.

Open Robotics said Fortress will be supported until September 2026. Open Robotics demoed most of the new features of Ignition Fortress at its monthly community meeting. You can watch that video above.

At press time, Ignition Fortress is currently supported by the following platforms: Ubuntu Bionic (18.04) and Focal (20.04), MacOS Catalina and BigSur (headless mode only), and Ignition Fortress-branded swagWindows 10 (partial support). Here is how you can get started with Ignition Fortress.

Open Robotics highlighted the following features from the Ignition Fortress release:

• Fortress world: Try out the Fortress demo world, which showcases lots of new features at once
• Segmentation camera: a new sensor that generates semantic and panoptic segmentation images
• Joint force-torque sensor: a new sensor that reports forces and torques on a joint
• Custom sensors: it’s now easier to create your own sensors and load them into simulation
• Visualizations: view models as wireframe or transparent, and also view more properties like center of mass, inertia and joints
• Orthographic view: Toggle the 3D scene into orthographic projection
• SDF now accepts degrees and quaternions
• Heightmaps with Ogre 2: Heightmaps are now also available with the latest version of the rendering engine
• Headless rendering using EGL: it’s now possible to run Ogre 2 rendering without a window
• Spherical coordinates: Support for spawning and teleporting entities based on their latitude and longitude
• Buoyancy engine: simulates a mechanical bladder, such as a ballast tank, to control buoyancy of underwater vehicles
• ROS integration : Fortress can be used with Melodic, Noetic and Rolling, and it will be the official Ignition version for the upcoming Humble release

Open Robotics said that on top of the aforementioned new features, Ignition Fortress also includes all the features that have been added to earlier releases since Edifice’s release six months ago. The company said it backports new features whenever possible.

Open Robotics said it has changed the release cadence for its simulation software. The next release, called Ignition Garden, is currently scheduled to be released in September 2022. So stay tuned.