v0.2.0

mavsim-viewer is now Hawkeye. New name, new home under the PX4 organization, and a massive feature release.

Multi-Drone Swarm Replay

Load multiple .ulg files and replay them simultaneously. Ghost mode overlays flights at 35% opacity for visual before/after comparison. Formation mode renders drones at their real GPS-relative positions with per-drone home position markers.

Automatic conflict detection pre-scans launch sites and offers deconfliction options (Formation, Ghost, Grid Offset, Narrow Grid) when it finds overlapping origins or suspicious separation.

CUSUM takeoff detection identifies liftoff automatically. Press A to time-align all drones so takeoffs are synchronized.

Correlation Analysis

Pin a secondary drone (Shift+1-9) and get live stats: Pearson correlation (trajectory similarity), RMSE (position error in meters), and CUSUM confidence. Toggle correlation lines, curtains, and gradient ribbon overlays between drones with Shift+T.

Theme Engine

76-slot theme system with .mvt file format. Cycle themes with V, or drag and drop custom .mvt files onto the window. Ships with Grid, Rez, and Snow presets. Includes a browser-based theme builder with live preview and export.

ULog Replay v2

Frame stepping (Shift+Arrow), persistent trails that survive seek and pause, and a marker system (B to drop, L to label, [/] to navigate). Improved seek with 1s and 5s granularity.

Free Camera

Third camera mode (cycle with C). Fly with WASD+QE, Shift for 3x speed. Jump to any marker and auto-track the drone until you take manual control.

Screen Edge Indicators

Ctrl+L shows chevrons at screen edges pointing toward off-screen drones in multi-vehicle mode.

Two-Digit Key Chords

Select or pin drones 10-16 with sequential key presses (e.g., 1 then 0 for drone 10).

Rendering Performance

Distance-based trail LOD skips segments far from camera, cutting ~12% off frame time with 64 drones. Trail buffers increased 50% (1800 to 2700 samples) with the savings. Camera-relative ground texture with three-tier LOD extends terrain visibility without extra cost.

Architecture

Extracted 8 focused modules from the main.c and hud.c monoliths. Added vtable abstraction for replay sources. Packed HUD draw parameters into typed structs. New cross-platform Makefile and expanded test coverage.

Install

macOS (Homebrew):

brew tap PX4/px4
brew install PX4/px4/hawkeye

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

# amd64
sudo dpkg -i hawkeye_0.2.0_amd64.deb

# arm64
sudo dpkg -i hawkeye_0.2.0_arm64.deb

From source:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/PX4/Hawkeye
cd Hawkeye && cmake -B build && cmake --build build
./build/hawkeye

v0.1.0

First release of MAVSim Viewer, a lightweight 3D viewer for MAVLink-based flight simulators.

Core

• Real-time 3D visualization from HIL_STATE_QUATERNION over UDP
• Multi-vehicle swarm support (up to 16 simultaneous vehicles)
• Cross-platform: macOS, Linux, Windows

Vehicle Models

• Auto-detection from MAV_TYPE (quadrotor, hexacopter, FPV quad, fixed-wing, tailsitter, rover)
• Runtime model swapping with M / Shift+M
• Directional lighting and per-view-mode arm colors (classic/modern toggle with K)

Camera & Views

• Chase and FPV camera modes with mouse orbit and FOV zoom
• Three view modes: Grid, Rez, Snow (high-contrast outdoor)
• Orthographic side panel and fullscreen ortho views (Alt+1-7)
• Procedural terrain texture (F to toggle)

HUD & Telemetry

• Compass and attitude indicator instruments
• 7-item telemetry bar: HDG, ROLL, PITCH, ALT, GS, AS, VS
• Multi-vehicle selection (TAB, [/], 1-9) and HUD pinning (Shift+1-9)
• Connection status indicator and sim timer
• Debug performance overlay (Ctrl+D)

Trails

• Three trail modes: off, directional trail, speed ribbon
• Adaptive sampling (dense on turns, sparse on straights)
• Ground track projection (G)

ULog Replay

• Play back PX4 .ulg flight logs with full transport controls
• Dead-reckoning interpolation for smooth playback (I)
• Flight mode markers on timeline
• Loop, seek, and speed controls

Install

macOS (Homebrew):

brew tap mavlink/tap
brew install mavlink/tap/mavsim-viewer

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo dpkg -i mavsim-viewer-0.1.0-amd64.deb

From source:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/mavlink/mavsim-viewer
cd mavsim-viewer && cmake -B build && cmake --build build
./build/mavsim-viewer