Ionic Release Notes and Highlights

highlights.md

@@ -2,9 +2,61 @@
 
 ## New Features
 
+- [Add new console logging functionality based on `spdlog`](https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-common/pull/615).
+  Also see [gz-utils#134](https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-utils/pull/134)
+
+  - Console logging has been reimplemented using `spdlog`. While the existing
+    macros such as `gzerr`, `gzwarn`, and `gzmsg` continue to work as before,
+    you can now get access to the raw `spdlog` logger, which provides greater
+    control and flexibility. A new macro, `gztrace` is also provided, which can
+    be useful in debugging or data collection scenarios. With `spdlog`, you also
+    get the ability to use format strings. Here's a quick example:
+
+    ```c++
+    auto logger = gz::common::Console::Root().RawLoggerPtr();
+    logger->trace("π to 5th decimal = {:.5f}\n", M_PI);
+    ```
+
+- Improvements to the bullet-featherstone physics plugin
+
+  - Many new features and bugfixes were made to the bullet-featherstone plugin
+    in gz-physics, which include support for nested models,
+    off-diagonal inertia, enforcing joint velocity and effort limits,
+    configuring solver iterations, and more. There are also features for
+    performance improvements and physics stability such as auto-deactivation,
+    static object collision optimization, and use of convex hull shapes for
+    convex decomposed meshes.
+
+- [Support for mesh optimization](https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-sim/pull/2417),
+[gzsim#2352](https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-sim/pull/2352),
+[gz-common#585](https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-common/pull/585),
+[sdformat#1382](https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-common/pull/585), and
+[gz-physics#606](https://github.com/gazebosim/gz-physics/pull/606)
+
+  - Added support for mesh optimization on the collision mesh. Users can now
+    specify whether or not to perform mesh optimization on a
+    collision mesh in SDF (requires SDF spec version >= 1.11). Two optimization
+    methods are currently supported: `convex_decomposition` and `convex_hull`.
+    Gazebo uses the open source
+    [V-HACD](https://github.com/kmammou/v-hacd) library to perform
+    convex decomposition to split the mesh into multiple submeshes.
+    Example SDF usage:
+
+
+    ```xml
+    <collision>
+      <mesh optimization="convex_decomposition">
+        <convex_decomposition>
+          <max_convex_hulls>16</max_convex_hulls>
+          <voxel_resolution>400000</voxel_resolution>
+        </convex_decomposition>
+        <uri>/path/to/mesh.dae</uri>
+      </mesh>
+    </collision>
+    ```
+
 ## Bug Fixes
 
 ## Breaking Changes
 
 ## Documentation
-