Short, frequent posts on what is new in Debrief v4, written in the same pull request as the work they describe.
Analysts can now add lines, areas, circles, ellipses, labels, markers and notes to a plot through a form, style them, give them a time, change and delete them. Each is one step in the plot's history, so Ctrl+Z takes it back. Notes are listed in a new Timeline, and legacy plots bring their circles, ellipses and styling with them.
A plot is now one file an analyst can pass to a colleague, and its whole history goes with it. The colleague can undo a step the sender made, go back to any step, and see who did what, with nothing else beside the file.
Debrief now has a time controller. The analyst sets one time window for the whole plot, plays through it at a chosen speed, and hands the plot file to a colleague, who opens it on the same window.
Debrief v4 starts with foundations rather than features. Here is the shape everything else will hang from.
When you drag the time slider or a target solution, the numbers must keep up with your hand. We measured whether they will.
Debrief v4 measures ranges and bearings along the true shape of the Earth. Legacy Debrief did not, so some figures will change slightly.
Phase 1's job is to prove the architecture by walking one path all the way through. You open a catalogue, see a plot on a map, select tracks, run a Python tool, and see its result on the map. That now works in VS Code.
Phase 2 is about trust. An analyst should be able to try something, take it back, have Debrief die mid-save, or share a plot with a colleague who changes it at the same time, and never lose work or have it overwritten without being told.
Debrief's analysis runs in Python and its interface in TypeScript. Every piece of data that passes between them is defined once, so the two sides cannot quietly disagree.
The public demonstration of Debrief will run its Python analysis tools inside your web browser. We checked that it works before building on it.