A tick-tock release cycle allows easy migration to new software versions. Obsolete code is marked as deprecated for one major release. Deprecated code produces compile-time warnings. These warning serve as notification to users that their code should be upgraded. The next major release will remove the deprecated code.

• If no <namespace> is given to the Thruster plugin, the namespace now defaults to the model name, instead of an empty string.

• The ParticleEmitter system is deprecated. Please use the ParticleEmitter2 system.

• Marker example has been moved to Ignition GUI.

• Some GUI plugins have been moved to Ignition GUI. Gazebo users don't need to change their configuration files, the plugins will be loaded the same way.

  • Grid Config
  • Tape Measure

• dynamic_pose/info topic is removed from LogRecord and LogPlayback since pose information is being logged in the changed_state topic.

• The internal management of entities and components in the EntityComponentManager has been updated to improve runtime performance. As a result, several methods have been deprecated, and a few types have changed.

  • Deprecated:
    • All EntityComponentManager methods that use ComponentKey as an input parameter.
    • The EntityComponentManager::First method.
    • The ComponentId and ComponentKey types are now deprecated. A combination of Entity and ComponentTypeId should be used instead.
    • The components::StorageDescriptorBase and components::StorageDescriptor<ComponentTypeT> classes.
    • Methods in components::Factory that have deprecated input parameter types and/or deprecated return types.
      • The version of components::Factory::Register which has a StorageDescriptorBase * input parameter.
      • components::Factory::NewStorage
    • The ComponentStorageBase and ComponentStorage<ComponentTypeT> classes.
  • Modified:
    • EntityComponentManager::CreateComponent now returns a pointer to the created component instead of a ComponentKey.
    • ComponentKey has been modified to be a std::pair<ComponentTypeId, Entity> (it used to be a std::pair<ComponentTypeId, ComponentId>) since the ComponentId type is now deprecated. ComponentKey has also been deprecated, so usage of this type is discouraged (see the Deprecated section above for more information about how to replace usage of ComponentKey).

• The GzScene3D GUI plugin is being deprecated in favor of MinimalScene. In order to get the same functionality as GzScene3D, users need to add the following plugins: MinimalScene: base rendering functionality GzSceneManager: adds / removes / moves entities in the scene EntityContextMenuPlugin: right-click menu InteractiveViewControl: orbit controls CameraTracking: Move to, follow, set camera pose MarkerManager: Enables the use of markers SelectEntities: Select entities clicking on the scene Spawn: Functionality to spawn entities into the scene via GUI VisualizationCapabilities: View collisions, inertial, CoM, joints, etc.

  Moreover, legacy mode needs to be turned off for the following plugins for them to work with MinimalScene (set <legacy>false</legacy>): TransformControl: Translate and rotate ViewAndle: Move camera to preset angles

• The gui.config and server.config files are now located in a versioned folder inside $HOME/.ignition/gazebo, i.e. $HOME/.ignition/gazebo/6/gui.config.

• If no <namespace> is given to the Thruster plugin, the namespace now defaults to the model name, instead of an empty string.

• Use cli component of ignition-utils1.

• ignition::gazebo::RenderUtil::SelectedEntities() now returns a const std::vector<Entity> & instead of forcing a copy. The calling code should create a copy if it needs to modify the vector in some way.

• Default generated topic name for thermal cameras now includes the /image suffix. The camera_info topic has also been fixed to include the sensor name in the generated topic string. The naming scheme should be consistent with a normal camera sensor. Topic changes:

  • /<prefix>/<sensor_name> -> /<prefix>/<sensor_name>/image
  • /<prefix>/camera_info -> /<prefix>/<sensor_name>/camera_info

• Various GuiEvents were deprecated in favor of their Ignition GUI equivalents.

  • Deprecated ignition::gazebo::gui::SnapIntervals
  • Replacement ignition::gui::SnapIntervals
  • Deprecated ignition::gazebo::gui::Render
  • Replacement ignition::gui::Render
  • Deprecated ignition::gazebo::gui::SpawnPreviewModel
  • Replacement ignition::gui::SpawnFromDescription
  • Deprecated ignition::gazebo::gui::SnapPreviewPath
  • Replacement ignition::gui::SnapFromPath

• The <direction> tag of spot lights was previously not parsed by the scene, so all spot lights shone in the direction corresponding to the default 0 0 -1. Since 5.x, the <direction> tag is correctly processed.

• Ignition Gazebo 4.0.0 enabled double sided material by default but this caused shadow artifacts to appear on some meshes. Double sided material is now disabled and made an opt-in feature. Users can configure this property in SDF by setting the <visual><material><double_sided> SDF element.

• The RenderUtil::SetEnabledSensors callback in gazebo rendering has a new required function argument for the Entity of the sensor.

  • Removed public: void SetEnableSensors(bool, std::function< std::string(const sdf::Sensor &, const std::string &)>)
  • Replacement public: void SetEnableSensors(bool, std::function< std::string(const gazebo::Entity &, const sdf::Sensor &, const std::string &)>)

• Log playback using <path> SDF parameter is removed. Use --playback command line argument instead.

• rendering::SceneManager

  • Deprecated: Entity EntityFromNode(const rendering::NodePtr &_node) const;
  • Replacement: Entity entity = std::get<int>(visual->UserData("gazebo-entity"));

• Use ign-rendering3, ign-sensors3 and ign-gui3.

• Changed component data types:

  • Altimeter now uses sdf::Sensor
  • JointVelocity now uses std::vector<double>

• Deprecated components:

  • JointVelocity2: use JointVelocity's vector instead.

• The --distributed command line argument has been deprecated. Use --network-role instead.

• The -f/--file command line argument has been deprecated. The SDF file can now be loaded without a flag.

• The ign-gazebo command line tool is deprecated. The new tool is ign gazebo, which has all the same options, except for --distributed and --file/-f, which have been removed.

• The entity_name field in the messages published by the imu system is updated to report its scoped name.

• Log files generated from Ignition Gazebo 1.X are no longer compatible with Gazebo 2 for playback. BitBucket pull request #257 added an SDF message to the start of log files.

• Log playback using <path> SDF parameter is deprecated. Use --playback command line argument instead.

• All headers in gazebo/network are no longer installed.

• The ignition-gazebo1-gui library has been changed to a gui component of ignition-gazebo. To use the gui component downstream, update the find package call in cmake to request for the component, e.g. ign_find_package(ignition-gazebo1 REQUIRED COMPONENTS gui), and link to the libignition-gazebo1::gui target instead of libignition-gazebo1-gui