Update History

• July 26, 2026

• Added Project File Specification describing the structure of project files (the top-level composition, the description of items and their common keys, references by item identifiers, the states of views and toolbars, plugin-specific sections, the layout, and sub projects) and the mechanism of the schema version that is managed independently for each item type. Also updated the section on saving projects in Projects and Items to refer to this page

• Added the section on the supported Ubuntu versions to Installation via Package (Ubuntu Linux), with a note that Ubuntu 26.04 is currently supported only by the development version

• July 23, 2026

• Revised BodySyncCamera, adding the description of the two usages (a camera tracking the robot and a camera mounted on the robot) and the section on using the camera as a robot-mounted camera, and adjusting the terminology and descriptions to be consistent with the other pages of the Basics of Robot/Environment Models chapter

• Added Running the GUI without Showing Windows Using a Virtual Display describing how to run the GUI without showing windows using a virtual display such as Xvfb

• Added the list of command line options to Launch Methods

• Added the sections on the camera item and the lighting item to Scene Display, and adjusted BodySyncCamera so that it refers to the new section for the functions common to the camera item

• Added Body Handler describing the body handler mechanism, the standard handler interfaces, how to implement and build handlers, and the samples

• Added Available Mesh File Formats describing the list of the mesh file formats available for model shapes and how to load a mesh file by itself. The descriptions of the Resource node in Body File Reference Manual and the mesh node in URDF Model Files have also been updated to refer to this page

• Added Linking Bodies by Parent-Child Relationships describing the position linkage of body items based on parent-child relationships (the coordinated and attached modes, and the examples of combining a robot and objects and of the hierarchical construction of environment models)

• Added Ubuntu 26.04 to the supported platforms in Supported Platforms

• Updated Graphics Environment Setup to match the recent situation, adding the description of the feature difference by the OpenGL version (the reversed depth buffer with 4.5 or later) and the section about the use on WSL, and renewing the instructions for installing the NVIDIA driver. The descriptions about the old rendering engine have been removed

• Added Display Value Format Settings describing the settings of the units, the numbers of decimals, and the coordinate system with the DisplayValueFormatBar

• July 22, 2026

• Added the new chapter Python Scripting describing the Python scripting features ( Overview of Python Scripting , Python Console , Writing Python Scripts , Python Script Item , Python Simulation Script , Executing Scripts from the Command Line )

• Reorganized Python Plugin so that it mainly guides readers to the new chapter

• Added the section on the headless mode (the –no-window option) to Launch Methods

• Moved the World Robot Summit 2018 chapter from the top level to under the Tips chapter

• Moved the BodySyncCamera page from the Tips chapter to the Basics of Robot/Environment Models chapter

• Added Recording and Playing Back Logs describing the recording and playback of simulation result logs (body motion items, world log files, log playback archives, handling of vision data, etc.)

• Reorganized Simulation Execution and Playback to focus on the simulation execution operations, consolidating the detailed descriptions of recording and playing back simulation results into Recording and Playing Back Logs

• Added Live Playback of a Simulation on a Remote Host describing the live playback of world log files and how to play back a simulation on remote hosts with the choreonoid-sync-logfile command

• Updated the description of the log playback archive in Recording and Playing Back Logs in accordance with the improvements of the function (copying the original model files as they are, support for saving and loading the zip format including loading from the command line, restoring the original project after saving, and the cleanup of the directory extracted from a zip file including the automatic removal when it is not modified)

• July 21, 2026

• Added the new chapter Plugins that gathers the documentation of the plugins. The existing documentation of the PhysX, AGX Dynamics, Multicopter, and TrafficControl plugins has been moved into this chapter

• Added MuJoCo Plugin and Bullet Plugin as the documentation pages of the newly introduced plugins

• Added the documentation pages of the other plugins ( Body Plugin , GL Vision Simulator Plugin , GL Camera Effect Plugin , LivoxMid360 Plugin , ODE Plugin , URDF Plugin , SDF Plugin , Assimp Plugin , Mocap Plugin , PoseSeq Plugin , Balancer Plugin , Media Plugin , Scene Effects Plugin , Python Plugin )

• Added the descriptions of the supported features, the properties, and the samples to PhysX Plugin

• Added Simulator Items describing the list of available simulator items, the properties common to the simulator items, and the properties of the AIST simulator

• Added Contact Materials describing the contact material mechanism

• Added Setting Extra Joints describing how to use extra joints and their support status for each simulator item

• Added Setting the Rotor Inertia describing the physical meaning of the rotor inertia (armature), its effects in simulation, its support status for each simulator item including the difference in the effect of the gear ratio depending on the modeling method, and the models in which it is set

• Added Piecewise Rigid Simulation of Continuous Tracks describing the continuous track simulation with the piecewise rigid continuous track device

• Added Vision Sensor Devices describing the available vision sensor devices and their parameters

• Updated the descriptions about the simulator items in Basic Concepts and Simulation Execution and Playback to match the latest implementation

• Restructured Optional Features to match the latest set of build options

• Reorganized the description of building optional features in Building and Installing from Source Code (Windows) (the instructions for building the ODE plugin on Windows have been moved to ODE Plugin )

• Removed the build instruction pages of the RoKi and Springhead plugins, which have been removed from Choreonoid itself

• Unified the descriptions and examples of the model file keys to the snake_case notation where it is supported ( Vision Sensor Simulation , Camera Effect Simulation , Simplified Simulation of Continuous Tracks , Complete Tank model file , Additional Parameters for Physical Materials , AGX Vehicle Continuous Track )

• Updated Standard Body Motion File Format to match the current format version 4 (with the snake_case keys)

• Added the PhysX simulator and the MuJoCo simulator to the list of compatible simulator items in Simplified Simulation of Continuous Tracks

• July 18, 2026

• Completely updated Qt-related Settings for current Qt environments on Windows and Ubuntu, reorganizing the instructions for display scaling, fonts, styles, platform themes, X11/Wayland, and related settings

• July 6, 2026

• Updated the descriptions under ROS 2 Integration in line with the migration of the ROS 2 integration package to the choreonoid_ros2 repository

• June 23, 2026

• Updated the parameter descriptions of each node in Body File Reference Manual to match the latest implementation

• Added a note to Building and Installing from Source Code (Windows) about PyYAML being required for URDF xacro processing in some cases

• June 1, 2026

• Added the “Additional Debugging Settings” section to How to Debug Choreonoid Using Visual Studio Code, describing how to specify gdb settings, how to deal with the slow first run caused by debuginfod, and so on

• May 1, 2026

• Updated the description of the configuration dialog in Scene Display to match the latest version

• April 29, 2026

• Added The Plugin Class

• April 22, 2026

• Added a description of optimization options to Building and Installing from Source Code (Ubuntu Linux)

• April 21, 2026

• Added PhysX Plugin

• Added a build option for the PhysX plugin to Optional Features

• Revised terminology throughout the documentation so that “crawler” is rendered as “track” or “continuous track” in accordance with standard English usage

• April 20, 2026

• Updated figures in Basic Concepts and Operations to match the latest version

• Separated Vision Sensor Simulation as its own chapter

• Added Camera Effect Simulation

• Added How to Debug Choreonoid Using Visual Studio Code

• October 20, 2025

• Added development version installation instructions to Installation via Package (Ubuntu Linux)

• October 17, 2025

• Updated Using ros2_control to reflect the latest status

• September 8, 2025

• Added Installation via Package (Ubuntu Linux)

• Updated Installation in Building and Installing from Source Code (Ubuntu Linux)

• Updated Optional Features

• Added Installing Choreonoid Main Body to ROS 2 Integration to explain how to use the Choreonoid main body installed by standard methods

• September 4, 2025

• Added description of “optical_frame” parameter to Camera and RangeSensor nodes in Body File Reference Manual

• Updated BodySyncCamera

• August 15, 2025

• Added supplementary notes regarding the installation method migration for Installing ROS 2

• July 8, 2025

• Translated the Japanese version as of July 8, 2025 to English