Professionals
Ride designers, engineers and students who need numbers they can trace and reproduce.
In development
Coming soon
Heartline
A professional roller coaster design and simulation suite for Windows.
Heartline is being built so you can design track by the forces riders should feel, by its shape, or both; simulate the ride in real time; and check the results with the methods the ride standards specify. It is a design tool, built to the standards of professional engineering software, not a game.
Status · October 2026
- Stage
- In development. The simulation core is built and tested; the editor and 3D views are being built now.
- Community preview
- A free community preview is planned after milestone M5, when a complete coaster can be designed, ridden and saved in Heartline.
- Release date
- None yet.
- Sign-up
- There is no sign-up list. News will be published on this site.
Work in progress
An early build
The first train running in Heartline’s own 3D view, driven by the simulation core. The track, train and scene are plain test assets.
Measured, not promised
From the automated tests
Figures from Heartline’s own test suite, October 2026, on the development machine.
- Simulation steps per second, in real time.
- 1,000
- Slowest 1 in 100 simulation steps with six trains on one ride, against a 0.5 ms budget.
- 0.37ms
- Dispatch cycles in the long operations test, with 2,033 injected faults. No two trains ever shared a block.
- 10,016
Positioning
Where Heartline fits
Ride manufacturers use a chain of specialist tools, from concept layout to certification. Heartline is a front-of-process tool: one environment and one physics model for designing a ride, simulating it and presenting it. It is not a certification tool, a structural analysis package or a safety system.
| Stage | Heartline’s role |
|---|---|
| Concept layout | The core of the product: force-based and shape-based track design with design forces. |
| Vehicle dynamics | Real-time simulation of rigid, multi-car trains with loads at every wheel assembly. Good for design decisions, not for engineering sign-off. |
| Ride operations | A simulation of blocks, interlocking, dispatch and operator panels, for checking an operating concept. Not a control or safety system, and never will be. |
| Standards evaluation | The evaluation method the standards describe: rider axes, the 5 Hz filter, every seat row. Limit values are provisional until checked against the published standards. |
| Structure and fabrication | Not covered. Exporting wheel loads and geometry for specialist tools is planned for a later version. |
| Certification | Not covered. Heartline does not certify rides. |
| Presentation | Planned: a photoreal view, rides from any seat, and camera paths for video. |
Who it is for
One tool, three depths
Simple, Designer and Engineering modes are planned to work on the same file. Switching mode changes the tools on screen, never the track.
Enthusiast designers
People who want full creative control: force-based design, editable graphs and a realistic ride.
Park owners and developers
Anyone who needs to show a proposed ride convincingly, in a realistic setting.
Casual builders
Anyone who wants to build a ride quickly from ready-made elements, without studying G-forces first.
Built and tested
Built and tested today
Heartline’s simulation core is built and covered by several hundred automated tests, run before every change is merged. Most of it has no user interface yet: the editor comes next.
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Track design maths
Force-based sections (normal force, lateral force and roll rate) and geometric sections (pitch, yaw and roll), straight and curved sections, transition curves and the heartline offset.
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Train simulation
Multi-car trains, including articulated trains, simulated at 1,000 steps a second with rolling and air resistance. Deterministic: the same inputs always give identical results.
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Forces and loads
Forces at every seat and loads at every wheel assembly, including the impacts where track curvature changes abruptly.
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Ride hardware
Tyre drives, chain and cable lifts, LSM and LIM launches, eddy-current and friction brakes, trim brakes and anti-rollback.
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Moving track
A general model for track that moves, such as switches: segments with states, routes for every combination of states, and route locking.
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Operations
Block sections, interlocking, stations, and automatic, manual and grouped dispatch, with design checks. A simulation of the operating concept, not a safety system.
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Sensors and logic
Presence, point and speed sensors driving rules with triggers, conditions and actions, plus timers and operator commands. No scripting needed.
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Analysis
Import of ride recordings (accelerometer data as CSV), the 5 Hz compliance filter, design forces beside simulated forces, and a check that the live simulation agrees with the detailed analysis run.
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File format
A versioned, documented
.heartlineformat. Reading a file never crashes the program, and every value the simulation uses is checked before a ride is built. -
Track geometry
3D track meshes for a generic steel style, built in sections and rebuilt only where the track changes.
Planned
Planned
These are goals, not finished features. Plans can change, and items may move between stages as the work proceeds.
For the community preview, after milestone M5
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3D view
Rides opened from a file and run in Heartline’s own window, with cameras and a live readout. In progress now (milestone M4).
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Designer mode
The editor: every section type, force and shape graphs edited by dragging, exact numeric input with units, and undo for every action.
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Simple mode
Ready-made elements such as loops and airtime hills, placed by dragging and joined smoothly.
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Technical view
A clean, CAD-like view with the track coloured by force on a fixed scale.
For the first release
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Intent-based design
Pins (“pass through here, heading this way”), constraints such as force limits and terrain clearance, and a solver that fills in the rest, so you can control forces and position together.
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Engineering mode
Acceleration checks using the evaluation method of EN 13814 and ASTM F2291, with results flagged on the track. Limits stay marked provisional until checked against the published standards.
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Ride, operate, explore
Ride in any seat with live forces, run the ride from working control panels, walk the site and board the train.
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Photoreal view and cinematics
Realistic lighting, time of day and basic weather; keyframed camera paths and video capture.
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Terrain
True 3D terrain with cliffs, overhangs and caves, and tunnels and trenches that follow the track.
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Structure
Automatic steel supports that you can then edit, manual supports and catwalks.
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Moving track in the editor
Switch tracks, transfer tracks and tilt track, defined as data with no scripting.
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Coaster styles
At least 20 steel styles across sit-down, inverted, floorless, wing, dive, family and launched coasters, built from modular trains.
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Audio
Wheel, rail, lift, launch and brake sounds driven by the simulation.
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Data in and out
CSV data export in every edition, glTF track export, ride-recording overlays, and import of track from other coaster tools where their formats allow.
Later versions
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Engineering integration
Wheel-load histories for structural analysis tools, fabrication geometry, CAD export and printable calculation reports.
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Automation
A Python API, and a connection that lets AI assistants inspect designs, run simulations and explain results.
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Operations and VR
An operations simulator with faults and hourly capacity, and riding and exploring in VR.
A design aid, not a certification tool
Heartline helps people design and evaluate rides. It does not certify rides, and it does not replace review by a qualified engineer or an independent inspection body. Heartline is not certified against any standard. Values that relate to EN 13814, ASTM F2291 or other standards are provisional until they have been checked against the published texts.
Coming soon
No public builds yet
Builds will appear on the downloads page when the community preview is ready. News will be published on this site.