OpenRocket 14.11 released

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kruland

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Hi everyone,

I decided to make a little release of OpenRocket today. It is a minor release, but does contain the newest thrustcurves (updated to AMW and new AT-DMS motors). There's a couple of annoying bugs fixed, but otherwise it's pretty much the same software.

It's been pretty busy for us developers and though we have some stuff in the works, there just has not been enough time to make the code ready for prime time.

Kevin
 
Thanks!

One thing I've noticed though for quite a few of the previous versions is that in the 3D view, you are unable to select a component by clicking on it. Instead you have to click on the parts list to get the part highlighted and the Edit window to come up. Not a big deal, but it is kind of annoying as it slows you down when applying lots of textures etc.
 
Love the OpenRocket. Anxiously awaiting the day we get Pods and Fins on nosecones/transitions/boattails. Another great feature would be to print a building board (kinda like you build RC aircraft wings) type pdf of the rocket to full size. Also rail lugs and rail buttons. What you guys have done is absolutely awesome for the hobby and the hobbyist!
 
Last edited:
I can't wait for the day when we can do tube fins but for now... I'm liking it!
 
OpenRocket is fantastic, I use it a lot! Hope to see some more features in the future; Pods, Tube Fins, Ring Fins, Graphical Flight Profile (In 3-D??), Glue Fillets, Parachute Spillholes.:) Anyways, its a great piece of software! (And free too, beat that!)

BuiltFromTrash
 
I would download it, but my PCs hard drive is not recognized, and appears to be totally dead. :(It's always a good sign when it asks you to install Windows...

Nate

Regardless, THANKS for your support of this great program

Nate
 
Kruland,

Though I agree with the many suggestions I see made for OR, I want to make sure you understand one thing. Please don't ever take the long list of suggestions as a lack of appreciation for what you have created and continue to upgrade. You have created a great program that rivals it's closest ($125) competitor, and you haven't taken a dime. There are many of us that are able to do lot's of wonderful stuff with your program, that just aren't able/willing to drop $125 on a rocket design/simulation program.

So when you see the lists of suggestions, please understand it is coming from a group of very appreciative people who just want to help make it better.

Thank you very much for your large contribution to our hobby.
 
CZ Brat said:
Kruland,

Though I agree with the many suggestions I see made for OR, I want to make sure you understand one thing. Please don't ever take the long list of suggestions as a lack of appreciation for what you have created and continue to upgrade. You have created a great program that rivals it's closest ($125) competitor, and you haven't taken a dime. There are many of us that are able to do lot's of wonderful stuff with your program, that just aren't able/willing to drop $125 on a rocket design/simulation program.

So when you see the lists of suggestions, please understand it is coming from a group of very appreciative people who just want to help make it better.

Thank you very much for your large contribution to our hobby.
Click to expand...


Absolutely true! It's a fantastic program! I was amazed when I found out such a great piece of software was available for free. Suggestions are offered in a spirit of helping, not complaints. Thanks for the update!
 
CZ Brat said:
Kruland,

Though I agree with the many suggestions I see made for OR, I want to make sure you understand one thing. Please don't ever take the long list of suggestions as a lack of appreciation for what you have created and continue to upgrade. You have created a great program that rivals it's closest ($125) competitor, and you haven't taken a dime. There are many of us that are able to do lot's of wonderful stuff with your program, that just aren't able/willing to drop $125 on a rocket design/simulation program.

So when you see the lists of suggestions, please understand it is coming from a group of very appreciative people who just want to help make it better.

Thank you very much for your large contribution to our hobby.
Click to expand...

Yup, +1
 
I find it very easy to add pods - just did so on a recent build. Tube fins with simple profiles should also be straight forward. As for fillets, I don't bother, though I can understand why some might care about these as a design element - I'm just not one who does.
 
matthewdlaudato said:
I find it very easy to add pods - just did so on a recent build. Tube fins with simple profiles should also be straight forward. As for fillets, I don't bother, though I can understand why some might care about these as a design element - I'm just not one who does.
Click to expand...

Are you saying you find it easy to add pods to your actual rocket, or are you saying you find it easy to add pods to a design in OpenRocket? If you are able to do it in OR, can you post some info on how you do it and attach an ork file? This is something I wanted to do recently but was unable to do.
 
ThirstyBarbarian said:
Are you saying you find it easy to add pods to your actual rocket, or are you saying you find it easy to add pods to a design in OpenRocket? If you are able to do it in OR, can you post some info on how you do it and attach an ork file? This is something I wanted to do recently but was unable to do.
Click to expand...

In OR, at design time, it is pretty straightforward. I may have a limited definition of pod however. I will attach the .ork I was referring to when I get back to my desk and let folks judge. (I also find it easy to glue them onto the main tube ;-)
 
Here is a file for my 'WrongWay' build, that has two engine pods glued directly to the main tube. What I did was add a motor tube and use radial position and radial distance to get them in the right location. I did have trouble with the pod noses - had to use mass components and thus they don't have the right shape profile - that would be a great feature add to this already great product. I suspect I could fiddle with adding a zero-length body tube so that I could force a nose cone onto the pod, but this worked fine and the flight appeared to mirror the sims well enough.

View attachment WrongWay.ork
 
The trouble with this technique is it will be completely ignored in the aerodynamics. The biggest downside is OR will overestimate the altitude because drag is ignored.

Kevin

matthewdlaudato said:
Here is a file for my 'WrongWay' build, that has two engine pods glued directly to the main tube. What I did was add a motor tube and use radial position and radial distance to get them in the right location. I did have trouble with the pod noses - had to use mass components and thus they don't have the right shape profile - that would be a great feature add to this already great product. I suspect I could fiddle with adding a zero-length body tube so that I could force a nose cone onto the pod, but this worked fine and the flight appeared to mirror the sims well enough.

View attachment 245402
Click to expand...
 
kruland said:
The trouble with this technique is it will be completely ignored in the aerodynamics. The biggest downside is OR will overestimate the altitude because drag is ignored.

Kevin
Click to expand...

As you are the maintainer, thanks, that is of course great to know. I will use this technique with caution.
 
One thing that would be really cool, but I'm not sure how much work it would be.

The ability to export an 3d-printer template for any part or assembly.
 
matthewdlaudato said:
In OR, at design time, it is pretty straightforward. I may have a limited definition of pod however. I will attach the .ork I was referring to when I get back to my desk and let folks judge. (I also find it easy to glue them onto the main tube ;-)
Click to expand...

matthewdlaudato said:
Here is a file for my 'WrongWay' build, that has two engine pods glued directly to the main tube. What I did was add a motor tube and use radial position and radial distance to get them in the right location. I did have trouble with the pod noses - had to use mass components and thus they don't have the right shape profile - that would be a great feature add to this already great product. I suspect I could fiddle with adding a zero-length body tube so that I could force a nose cone onto the pod, but this worked fine and the flight appeared to mirror the sims well enough.

View attachment 245402
Click to expand...

Thanks, Matt. One of the things I'm interested in is how the pods affect the CP and stability, so this method won't work for that. I built a rocket with pods way out on the fin edges, and had no way to really calculate what the effect would be. The rocket turned out to be a very stable and steady flier, but I still have no idea if it is becasue of the pods or in spite of them.
 
ThirstyBarbarian said:
Thanks, Matt. One of the things I'm interested in is how the pods affect the CP and stability, so this method won't work for that. I built a rocket with pods way out on the fin edges, and had no way to really calculate what the effect would be. The rocket turned out to be a very stable and steady flier, but I still have no idea if it is becasue of the pods or in spite of them.
Click to expand...

As I would have realized had I actually paid attention to this note in OR:

Screen Shot 2014-11-03 at 6.03.34 PM.png

Mine also is a good flier - now I feel like I must either 1. Hack OR or 2. Do a CLA estimation on the more complex builds, to at least get a sense of where the (static) CP is. (2) is much more likely. Humbled..
 
I admit that this is probably "eye candy" more than anything else but the one thing I wish OpenRocket had that Rocksim does is animated flight simulation. There's just something about being able to watch the rocket take off and land. Of course my demo version of Rocksim cut the flight of at Apogee so I never got to see the landing part. I imagine there are much higher priorities than flight animation though.
 
Everbody digs the free aspect of OR, but who is embracing the "Open" part of this Open Source software? How many serious developers are out there? Is anybody modifying the code to suit their own tastes? I am curious. Thanks.
 
Buckeye said:
Everbody digs the free aspect of OR, but who is embracing the "Open" part of this Open Source software? How many serious developers are out there? Is anybody modifying the code to suit their own tastes? I am curious. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I have the code building on my Mac, but just figuring out how it works. Nowhere near being a useful contributor.
 
Buckeye said:
Everbody digs the free aspect of OR, but who is embracing the "Open" part of this Open Source software? How many serious developers are out there? Is anybody modifying the code to suit their own tastes? I am curious. Thanks.
Click to expand...

There's been about 10-15 contributors over the lifetime of the project. However over the last year there's been 1 though arguably I haven't been all that serious.

Kevin
 
CZ Brat said:
Kruland,

Though I agree with the many suggestions I see made for OR, I want to make sure you understand one thing. Please don't ever take the long list of suggestions as a lack of appreciation for what you have created and continue to upgrade. You have created a great program that rivals it's closest ($125) competitor, and you haven't taken a dime. There are many of us that are able to do lot's of wonderful stuff with your program, that just aren't able/willing to drop $125 on a rocket design/simulation program.

So when you see the lists of suggestions, please understand it is coming from a group of very appreciative people who just want to help make it better.

Thank you very much for your large contribution to our hobby.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the kudos.

Funny how a new release brings out all the "I want it to do this" comments. When *I* did my first release (as opposed to Sampo doing it) back in 2012, it kinda freaked me out. But now, I've heard all these requests before and I do understand the big things that people want.

As for taking dimes, there's lots of ways to support the project. The home page has a donate $ link. I'm always willing to receive a handshake or shady chair at launches. And helping out users on this forum is always welcomed.

Kevin
 
Kevin,

Many, many, many thanks for OR! I use the program regularly as I prefer to scratch build all my birds, and I thought I'd share an interesting use of the data:

I do a sreen shot of the flights simulations page and drop it into a photo editor to add some text/title, then save to a PDF. The PDF is printed to go into a 3-ring binder for use at launches (eventually, I'll buy a laptop to take with me...).

In this way, I've got all my sim data pertaining to a particular rocket in front of me. In other words, I can base my flights of a particular rocket on the current field conditions by selecting a motor that will only take it to X altitude if there is high wind for example. Or, if I want a slow ascent, I can see that X motor pulls lower Gs and has a slower exit from the rail/rod, etc. For windy days, I like to get off the pad more quickly to minimize initial weather-cocking.

Since I keep an Excel printout of motor inventory in the binder, I know instantly what motors I need should there be a vendor at a launch.

Anyway, thought I'd share :)

Thank you again!

Sam

Design & Simulations Data.jpg
 
SammyD said:
Kevin,

Many, many, many thanks for OR! I use the program regularly as I prefer to scratch build all my birds, and I thought I'd share an interesting use of the data:

I do a sreen shot of the flights simulations page and drop it into a photo editor to add some text/title, then save to a PDF. The PDF is printed to go into a 3-ring binder for use at launches (eventually, I'll buy a laptop to take with me...).

In this way, I've got all my sim data pertaining to a particular rocket in front of me. In other words, I can base my flights of a particular rocket on the current field conditions by selecting a motor that will only take it to X altitude if there is high wind for example. Or, if I want a slow ascent, I can see that X motor pulls lower Gs and has a slower exit from the rail/rod, etc. For windy days, I like to get off the pad more quickly to minimize initial weather-cocking.

Since I keep an Excel printout of motor inventory in the binder, I know instantly what motors I need should there be a vendor at a launch.

Anyway, thought I'd share :)

Thank you again!

Sam

View attachment 246022
Click to expand...

That's a great use. I did the same thing for my L1 cert flight. I had a print of a screenshot like yours and was able to show the calculated CP and my measured CG. I also had all the sims for the different motors and the estimated ideal delays. I was able to show it to the cert advisor, and we were able to pick a good motor available from the vendor on site and drill to the right delay. The flight was perfect.

It was so handy, I'm planning to do this for some of my other rockets, especially when I'm going to be buying motors on site.
 
the export feature can do this too w/o the added steps of converting a screenie, just un-tick the templates and other bits that you don't need in your report.
Rex
 
Yes and no.

Yes, the flight profile data is exported but it isn't in the same format and chews a lot of paper for keeping in a binder.

Rex R said:
the export feature can do this too w/o the added steps of converting a screenie, just un-tick the templates and other bits that you don't need in your report.
Rex
Click to expand...
 
Anyone know how to run the Java file as a Mac application? I did this many moons ago but have since gotten a new Mac. If I recall correctly it made use of Automator to call the jar file and bundled it as a Mac app. I've searched all over the forums here but don't see anything. Maybe I read it on some other web site initially. (getting old sucks)
 

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