Hi!
Some of you know that one of our biggest accomplishments here at the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) was to build a validated satellite simulator that is being used in all phases of the attitude and orbit control subsystem (AOCS) development. I always knew that one day I will need a proper TUI to allow me to debug the algorithms more easily than wait for execution and analyze the results.
Hence, 7 (SEVEN!) years ago, I started to code TextUserInterfaces.jl, which is a NCurses wrap with a TUI framework on top. However, due to a lack of time, poor decisions, and technical limitations of the NCurses library, I could never really have something good.
Then, @kahliburke released Tachikoma.jl, which is a terminal framework to build TUIs comparable to Bubbletea and Ratatui. I tested a little bit, and it was amazing. The number of features available there is mind-blowing. Thus, I decided to migrate my old UI project from TextUserInterfaces.jl to Tachikoma.jl. The result is just amazing:
The world map is rendered using GLMakie. The OpenGL frame buffer is copied directly to the Tachikoma.jl widget and shown using the Kitty graphics protocol. The rendering is happening almost in real-time, meaning that I have no noticeable slowdown in the simulation speed given the TUI rendering steps. The ability to show images like this made me abandon the UI project I had using Genie.jl. Genie.jl is amazing, but it is significantly slower to show this kind of information.
Another very good point is how everything in Julia is integrated. I need three packages only to show this world map: GeoMakie.jl, GLMakie.jl, SatelliteAnalysis.jl. Hence, if I want to see the simulation without the waiting time for loading everything, I can just use Tachikoma.jl and the Julia extensions take care of everything.
I think this is a very nice use case of how the Julia ecosystem can be integrated to achieve amazing results. I also want to thank @kahliburke for the amazing work in Tachikoma.jl!