What is RCE?

RCE is an Open Source distributed, workflow-driven integration environment. It is used by engineers and scientists to design and simulate complex systems (e.g., aircraft, ships, or satellites) by using and integrating their own design and simulation tools.
An overview about RCE and some of its application fields gives this survey article.
If you're interested in contributing to RCE please don't hesitate and contact us. The source code is distributed as a zip archive along with each release. We will provide general public access to our source code repository soon.

Cite us

If you use RCE in your research project, please cite either the software itself or our reference publication:

  • Latest software release: J. Flink, R. Mischke, and L. Rosenbach, "RCE (Remote Component Environment)". Zenodo. Oct. 14, 2026. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.23315853.
  • The RCE software in general (always refers to the latest release). doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3691674
  • B. Boden, J. Flink, N. Först, R. Mischke, K. Schaffert, A. Weinert, A. Wohlan and A. Schreiber, "RCE: an integration environment for engineering and science". SoftwareX, Volume 15, 2021. doi: 10.1016/j.softx.2021.100759

Work with us

We are always open to working together with users to extend RCE and to apply it to new use cases. For this, we often participate in collaborative research projects. Please contact us at rce@dlr.de.

News

Release 3.1.0

Changelog

  • Fixed bug regarding boolean values sent within a workflow (workflow components always retrieved 'false' even the previous component sent 'true')
  • Added support for workflow control from within scripts executed with the Script component again
  • GUI misc: mark GUI elements red if validation error exists (instead of yellow which is …
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Release 3.0.0

Changelog

  • Added support for remote upload of large files
  • Unified data types of input values and output values which are used by workflow components (Note: all workflow files created with RCE < 3.0.0 will be updated by RCE when opening them for the first time)
  • Replace the Python workflow …
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Release 2.5.1

Changelog

  • extended Converger component to add support for nested loops
  • added workflow status icons to workflow runtime tab
  • added support for macros to Excel component's export function
  • Excel component exports to clipboard with Excel-like insertion
  • fixed copying a workflow component in the workflow editor (the copied component had the same …
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Release 2.5.0

Changelog

  • A new component for submitting cluster jobs was added
  • Major rework of the optimizer component
    • Updating a pre 2.5.0 workflow file containing an optimizer component will remove all previous method configuration
  • improved workflow updater
  • improved logging for failing python component
  • improved error handling in optimizer component
  • added …
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Release 2.4.2

Changelog

  • added new workflow component "Input Provider": user can define input values for other components, like text, numbers, or files
  • improved workflow editor handling
    • improved support for short cuts
    • fixed minor issues
  • improved logging of workflow status during execution
  • improved workflow execution in batch mode
    • improved performance
    • enabled workflow execution …
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Release 2.4.1

Changelog

  • added boolean channeltype in Python component
  • added mechanism to support wildcard entries in publishedComponents configuration
  • added configuration for rce-tmp folder
  • fixed various bugs in SimpleWrapper component (i.e. regarding the use of input channels in pre/post process)
  • fixed bug in converger
  • minor fixes and improvements
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Release 2.4.0

Changelog

  • Major rework of the network/communication system; changes include:
    • significant performance improvements
    • simplified setup of ad-hoc networks; in typical use cases, clients only a single line of configuration to connect to a network
    • simplified handling of firewalled systems and subnets
  • reduced supported languages to English to avoid language mixups …
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Release 2.3.8

Changelog

  • add updating mechanism for workflow files containing at least one Python component (it is not upwards compatible)
  • fixed bug in Simple Wrapper component (occurred if used as first component within an workflow)
  • fixed bug in Python component regarding array inputs
  • fixed bug in SQL component regarding array inputs
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Release 2.3.7

Changelog

  • added new concept for sensitive workflow configuration values
  • re-designed Excel workflow component for stability and usability purposes
  • added support for Optimizer component (Dakota) in Linux versions
  • added view for cluster job monitoring
  • fixed bug in configuration GUI of Simple Wrapper component (occured only in Linux versions)
  • fixed bug in …
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