What's new?

Motion Platform and CANopen support

The Vortex Studio Motion Platform and Vortex CANopen add-ons are now available as optional add-ons.

Users can incorporate the Vortex Simulator Motion Platform into their simulations using the Vortex Studio Motion Platform.

Users of Vortex CANopen can add CM-Labs controllers to their simulations or even create custom extensions using the SDK.

The Vortex Activate license covers both products.

Vulkan Renderer

SpaceNavigator mouse Support in Vulkan

The new Vortex Renderer now supports the SpaceNavigator mouse by 3Dconnexion.

Basic Ocean Rendering

The Vulkan renderer, used by default in all Vortex apps, now includes basic rendering of the ocean's surface.

In this version, the graphical meshes accurately reproduce the surface information from ocean dynamics simulation.

Python 2 is no longer supported

Vortex Studio Python 2 package VxSim has been removed from Vortex Studio as well as our Python 2 extensions and will no longer work within Vortex Studio.

Any Python 2 Script extension will be automatically converted to a Python 3 extension and will use the same script.

The scripts of the converted extension will need to be updated manually following the guidelines - see Python 3 Scripting.

System Requirements

VortexSetup and previous versions of Vortex Studio

When downloading an earlier version (Before 2023.5) of the VortexSetup utility installer from the website, the tool is no longer capable of fetching the installation packages remotely.

The installation packages must be fetched from the Manual Process section. After copying them into the same folder as VortexSetup, VortexSetup will work normally.

The latest version of VortexSetup works properly.

Supported Platform

Vortex Studio 2023.6 runs on the following platforms:

Microsoft Windows 10 (x64), version 22H2.
Microsoft Windows 11 (x64), version 22H2.

Not all features are available on the Linux operating system. See Features and Capabilities Overview for more details.

2022.8 is the last version supporting CentOS7 or equivalent. An update to the latest Ubuntu LTS and equivalent systems is in progress.

Vortex Studio on Linux can only open content created on Vortex Studio (Windows) 2023.3 or earlier. This will be fixed in a later release. For the moment, use an earlier version of Vortex Studio on Windows to create content to work on Linux. The recommended version and the last supported version of Linux is 2022.8 and the same version on Windows needs to be used for the best results.

Hardware Requirements

Recommended Configuration for Vortex Editor

CPU Intel i7-9700 or better
RAM 32GB
GPU
- Intel, NVIDIA, or AMD
- 4 GB VRAM, Vulkan 1.3

Software Capabilities

Mongo DB

Mongo DB is the database engine used in Vortex Activate.

The version supported is Mongo DB 4.2.

Qt

Vortex Studio uses a custom version of Qt 5.15.2.

Python

Unreal Engine Integration

Vortex Studio 2023.6 supports integration with Unreal Engine version 4.26.

Unity Integration

Vortex Studio 2023.6 supports integration with Unity 2021.3.16f1 LTS.

Supported Compiler

Vortex Studio 2023.6 supports Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 (VC14) compiler and above.

GCC 7.3 is the supported compiler on Linux.

Simulink/MATLAB

Real-time UDP protocol of Simulink/MATLAB is supported.
Vortex S-Function block in Simulink is supported.

Supported 3D model File Types

The following 3D model file types can be imported into Vortex Studio Editor.

.cive, .dae, .fbx, .flt, .ive, .obj
.osg2, .osga, .osgb, .osgs, .osgt, .osgx, .shp

Vortex Human

In the editor, humans can be represented as a capsule and moved around with a script or an animation path extension.

Visualization of humans can be done in a simulator using Unity or Unreal.

Vortex Vegetation

In the editor, plants and trees can be represented as collision geometries.

Visualization of Vegetation can be done in a simulator using Unity or Unreal.

Licensing

Vortex uses RLM by Reprise Software™ for licensing.

Compatibility Notice

Between the Windows version and the Linux version

Between any Vortex version

Record-and-Playback as well as Keyframe files created with previous versions may not work with Vortex Studio 2023.6.

End-of-life Notice

Python 3.8 needs to be used.

Feature Snap to Surface in the Vortex Editor was removed.

Minor Improvements in Vortex Studio 2023.6

In addition to features documented in the “What's New”, minor improvements have been made during the development of Vortex Studio 2023.6:

ID	Summary

ID	Summary
VP-43870	Update to constraints Documentation
VP-46322	Vortex Director: Changing the working directory for the simulator file - You can now drag and drop the folder with you simulator files to change the root directory.

Fixed Issues in Vortex Studio 2023.6

Various bugs and workflow issues have been fixed during the development of Vortex Studio 2023.6:

ID	Summary

ID	Summary
VP-46115	Vortex Editor: Switching renderer to OpenGl from the default (Vulkan) does not work on first attempt
VP-46167	Massless Cable - Incorrect winding numbers on initialization

Known Issues in Vortex Studio 2023.6

ID	Summary	Workaround
VP-41437	When a sound is created such that the listener and the emitter are exactly at the same location, or the listener is moving together with the emitter such that it is precisely above it, the sound that the operator hears becomes garbled.	This happens for monaural sound track when the listener and the emitter are moving in tandem while being either too close or aligned vertically. The workaround is keep the sound emitter and the listener separate and make sure they can't be move in a way where they could align with each other.
VP-43810	Memory blocks dumped, when terminating the application.	None. This memory leak is not growing, it's memory that should be returned before the end of the process. Requires a 3rd party update.
VP-44315	Memory leak related to VxContactMaterial when there is a contact upon termination of a VxCore application.	Removing all parts and collision geometries before destroying the VxUniverse ensures that any ongoing contact is invalidated before destroying the VxUniverse. Optionally, using the higher level VxSim API and loading content created in the Vortex Studio Editor seems to work around this issue as the content is automatically unloaded before the application is destroyed.

Vortex Studio 2023.6 Documentation

Vortex Studio 2023.6 Change Log