What's New in FreeFlyer?

The current version of FreeFlyer is the major release, FreeFlyer 8.0. You can find the full set of release notes for all past versions of FreeFlyer here.

 

New Features in FreeFlyer 8.0

New User Experience

  • Features an all-new modernized front-end interface, providing a redesigned and streamlined workspace for Mission Plan development.

  • Added application-wide dark theme support across the user interface, featuring an all-new dark mode color palette.

  • Redesigned the Home Screen with an enhanced "Browse Mission Plans" experience for streamlined project navigation and management.

Cross Platform

  • Full cross-platform support is now available for running both FreeFlyer.exe (GUI) and ff.exe (CLI) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL 9) alongside Windows.

  • Introduced a beta release for macOS operating systems running natively on Apple Silicon hardware (M1, M2, M3, and M4 processors).

    • Users are encouraged to report any feedback or issues encountered during macOS beta testing.

Plotting

  • Integrated an all-new plotting component featuring enhanced visualization performance, higher rendering frame rates, and updated script interfaces.

  • Added support for multiple new plot series types:

    • 3D scatter plots

    • 3D surface plots

    • 4D plots using 3D scatter series with a color axis

    • Contour plots

    • Heatmap plots

    • 2D vertical bar chart series

  • Plot axes now support custom categorical text labels in place of standard numerical values.

  • Added interactive replay support for PlotWindows while a Mission Plan is running or paused.

Output

  • Introduced an all-new high-performance rendering engine that decouples visual execution from the core astrodynamics engine.

    • Visualizations run significantly faster and no longer block calculations, meaning Mission Plans execute at full speed regardless of visual complexity or whether output windows are minimized.

  • Output workspace window management has been redesigned to allow tabs to be grouped, rearranged, hidden, maximized, floated, or grid-locked.

  • Added support for interactive output replay while a Mission Plan is actively running or paused.

    • Replay capabilities have been expanded to include ConsoleWindows in addition to ViewWindows and PlotWindows.

  • Enhanced ViewWindow visual capabilities with several key rendering improvements:

    • Orbit history lines now feature customizable gradient fading over time.

    • Integrated Order-Independent Transparency (OIT) to accurately convey depth ordering for overlapping translucent layers, such as sensor cones and ground station masks.

    • Earth and CelestialObject surface rendering utilizes Procedural Quad Spheres (PQS) to dynamically increase terrain mesh resolution when zooming in, ensuring GroundStations with a height of zero no longer float above the surface.

    • Spacecraft can now be rendered as simple points as an alternative to 3D model visualization.

Scripting Enhancements

  • Incorporated an all-new parsing engine and modern code editor designed for accelerated script development.

  • Real-time continuous syntax checking automatically catches script issues and displays them immediately in the Script Errors drawer.

  • Introduced inline Peek References, enabling symbol references and definitions to be inspected directly within the code editor without losing context in script.

  • Enhanced navigation and refactoring tools operate seamlessly across both GUI and script environments:

    • Integrated tools include Find All References, Go to Definition, Rename Symbol, and Replace All.

  • Added sub-string and fuzzy IntelliSense matching to autocomplete.

  • Native language-level documentation ("doc strings") allows developers to define multi-line descriptions and argument descriptions for Procedures and Struct members directly in script.

  • Introduced a centralized Command Palette and a "Search Everywhere" drawer for rapid navigation and command execution.

  • Redesigned user interfaces provide clearer tracking for Script Errors, Script Warnings, Runtime Errors, and Runtime Warnings.

  • Added special guided migration error messages when referencing removed features to direct users to corresponding updated properties and methods.

Miscellaneous Enhancements

  • New Environment and Simulation objects are available to expand scripting and workspace modeling capabilities.

  • Optimized Mission Plan XML storage by removing the unnecessary legacy "Project Script" section.

  • The Runtime API (RTAPI) and ff.exe now support image-generation-only windowed output execution.

 

Migrating to FreeFlyer 8.0

See our migration guide for more information on moving to FreeFlyer 8.0

 

 

See Also

Release History ›