Re: [Orekit Developers] Preparing next Orekit release (6.1)

[Thomas Neidhart <thomas.neidhart@gmail.com>]

On 11/28/2013 04:33 PM, Luc Maisonobe wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> The last release of Orekit was version 6.0, published on 2013-04-23,
> seven months ago. A lot of work has been done since then and we should
> think about releasing a new version.
> 
> What is already available in the git repository and has been added since
> 6.0 is:
> 
>  - added solid tides force model, including pole tide at user choice,
>    and following either IERS 1996, IERS 2003 or IERS 2010 conventions
>  - added ocean tides force model, including pole tide at user choice,
>    loading a user provided model
>  - added simultaneous support for IERS 1996, 2003 and 2010, which is
>    very important to support legacy systems and to convert coordinates
>    between older and newer reference systems
>  - greatly improved accuracy of celestial/terrestrial frames transforms.
>    We are now at sub-micro arcsecond level for IERS 2003/2010, both with
>    equinox based and Non-Rotating Origin, at a sub-milli arcseconds
>    for IERS 1996, both with equinox based and Non-Rotating Origin
>  - classical equinox-based paradigm and new non-rotating origin
>    paradigm for inertial and terrestrial frames are now supported with
>    all IERS conventions. This means it is now possible to use
>    MOD/TOD/GTOD with the recent precession/nutation models from recent
>    conventions, and it is also possible to use CIRF/TIRF/ITRF with the
>    older precession nutation models from ancient conventions. Of
>    course, all these conventions and frames can be used at the same
>    time.
>  - added automatic conversion of IERS Earth Orientation Paramters from
>    equinoxial to non-rotating paradigm
>  - added support for CCSDS Orbit Data Message

very nice addition, and it even implements the generic OrbitFile
interface ;-).

Some of the methods from OrbitFile are only auto-generated stubs in
ODMFile, so I would suggest to throw an UnsupportedOperationException in
case it is really not supported by a CCSDS file or return a correct result.

I can do the changes if agreed.

>  - new factory methods for several Julian and Besselian epochs
>  - improvement of Poisson series efficiency
>  - a few fixes have been added in DSST mean parameters propagation,
>    which is now undergoing a thorough validation process,
>  - added an improved API for events, allowing separation of event
>    detection and event handling (the older API is still available for
>    compatibility)
>  - merged all the elevation related events, allowing to use both
>    refraction model and antenna mask at the same time if desired
>  - added an attitude mode based on interpolation on a table
>  - various bug fixes (110, 131, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 145,
>    148, 149, 150, 151, 152)
> 
> The next big improvement will be adding short periodic terms for DSST. A
> project is ongoing for this with a target release in late 2014.
> 
> The changes already available introduce some incompatibilities, but they
> are not considered to be major ones, as they mainly affect classes not
> expected to be directly used by end users (typically in the internal
> handling of Poisson series and predefined frames). So we propose that
> despite these changes the next release will be considered a minor one in
> the 6.X series and will therefore be numbered 6.1. We have of course
> tried to retain compatibility as much as possible and have introduced
> temporary features to help user have a smoother transition.
> 
> The Orekit Project Management Committee accepted this status for the 6.1
> release, so the current version is considered to be feature complete. We
> may add a few improvements in DSST if they become ready before the release.
> 
> As usual before a release, I would like to ask if some native speakers
> would help us translate the error messages. For the half-dozen languages
> already supported by Orekit, we have introduced about 10 new messages
> that would need translation. Help is welcome to update these messages.
> If native speakers for currently not-supported languages would like to
> add their language, it would be great too and help is wanted for this
> topic too. It is possible to start progressively: if only a few messages
> are translated and others are not, Orket will still work, simply
> displaying an English message when the translation is missing. The
> system we use also supports any unicode characters, so there are no
> restriction on the type of language we can add.

added translations for german.

> I would also like to ask everyone to give a try to the current version
> and notifies us of any error they may encounter.
> 
> Our target date for the release is around mid-December.

great!

Thomas