OpenRocket 15.03 released

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kruland

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Hello greater rocket community.

Today I pushed OpenRocket 15.03 to the servers and you will undoubtedly start downloading and using it. There are a number of improvements to the software contributed by 5 developers. This is the largest number of developers contributing to a single release since I've taken over that responsibility. Thank you each and every one.

The biggest changes are:

Support for scripting in simulation extensions
Experimental support for tube fins
Custom default mach number
Improved preferences UI
Fin fillet masses (no aero effects though)
Custom icons for different mass types (altimeter, hardware, etc)
Mass in the tool tip on the component tree.
And numerous little bugs and annoyances fixed

Kevin
 
I just checked out the new features and as always, it is looking great! Thanks to all of the developers for their hard work. I guess this is a good excuse to start planning a tube fin build...
 
Love the OR, will have lots of time to play with it late this evening. Thanks for all you guys do for the rocketry community.
 
OR currently uses the 3 fin per tube approximation. This is probably too generous. As advertised, it is experimental, and all feed back will be appreciated.

Kevin

Thanks for the tube fins! I am comparing a Centuri Groove Tube in OR and RS, the CP is farther back in OR, giving a higher stability margin, FYI.
 
Does the fillet option also do internal fillets? Haven't gotten a chance to check out the new release yet.
 
OR currently uses the 3 fin per tube approximation. This is probably too generous. As advertised, it is experimental, and all feed back will be appreciated.

Kevin
I was hoping you could use a data point to fine tune the approximation :)
 
I just got this error when I tried to open the new version.

error.jpg
 
I tried to add tube fins using a part from the database, and it doesn't seem to respect the diameter of the parts. It puts the correct length in, but does not change the diameter. For example, I was trying to put 3 bt-101T tubes on a bt-70 spaced between three fins. No matter what I did the diameter of the tubes did not update (yes I unchecked the Automatic box) and I had to put in the diameter manually.
 
Will all of my current designs/files be openable if I get the upgrade/new version?
 
Hello greater rocket community.

Today I pushed OpenRocket 15.03 to the servers and you will undoubtedly start downloading and using it. There are a number of improvements to the software contributed by 5 developers. This is the largest number of developers contributing to a single release since I've taken over that responsibility. Thank you each and every one.

The biggest changes are:

Support for scripting in simulation extensions
Experimental support for tube fins
Custom default mach number
Improved preferences UI
Fin fillet masses (no aero effects though)
Custom icons for different mass types (altimeter, hardware, etc)
Mass in the tool tip on the component tree.
And numerous little bugs and annoyances fixed

Kevin
Thanks once again! Runs fine on Windows 10 Pro Technical Preview Build 9926 although I expected it would since its a Java app. Will definitely be messing with the experimental tube fin feature. I've found Rocksim to be amazingly accurate in predicting the performance of the tube fin rockets I've built, so we'll see how the predictions compare.
 
FYI there appears to be a typo in the release notes, they refer to the newest version as '14.04'...
Rex
 
the tube fin support is nice...but it isn't quite what I want/need yet. I'm doing a design file of a sunward saber, which looks much like this(see saber.ork). it has a total of 6 tube fins, but 2 of them are mounted on tube fins(4 mounted on the airframe in pairs, each pair having a fin mounted on them). I can get the appearance close enough for an up scale, however trying to simulate this is not even close to reality.
Rex

View attachment saber.ork
 
Was playing with it this morning my L3 project a 10 inch 10.5 ft tube fin was very close to what was put in when I made the SIM
 
Attempting to load a Rosksim tube fin design that I've flown and verified the actual performance of, I got the old tube fins not supported message. Simple fix was to very easily add and dimension (length) the tube fins after loading the Rocksim file which was only missing its fins after loading.

Rocksim (Aerotech E20-4):

Apogee 615 ft (measured as almost exactly that twice with Altimeter II)
Max V 219 ft/s (ditto)
CG 26.1 in
CP 35.4 in
Margin 3.58

OpenRocket (Aerotech E20-4):

Apogee 548 ft
Max V 201 ft/s
CG 29.1 in
CP 38.8 in
Margin 3.7
 
Winston,

If you could send me the original RockSim tube fin file, we can work on importing & saving in the next release.

Kevin

Attempting to load a Rosksim tube fin design that I've flown and verified the actual performance of, I got the old tube fins not supported message. Simple fix was to very easily add and dimension (length) the tube fins after loading the Rocksim file which was only missing its fins after loading.

Rocksim (Aerotech E20-4):

Apogee 615 ft (measured as almost exactly that twice with Altimeter II)
Max V 219 ft/s (ditto)
CG 26.1 in
CP 35.4 in
Margin 3.58

OpenRocket (Aerotech E20-4):

Apogee 548 ft
Max V 201 ft/s
CG 29.1 in
CP 38.8 in
Margin 3.7
 
Odd. 15.03 won't launch on my Mac. 14.11 works fine. I'm running os 10.8.5, but that shouldn't matter.
 
Hi Tonimus, I would try installing the latest Java from the official site. Once I had "version 8 update 40" installed on my Yosemite system double-clicking the .jar worked fine, interestingly I'm now unable to launch it from a Terminal window (looks like that 'java' is still 1.6 while the new OR requires 1.7). This fixes a different issue I had run into after OS X told me I needed a Java update a few weeks ago (still 1.6 I believe), that caused OR to stop showing its menubar when launched by double-clicking, but launching 14.11 from the command-line fixed that issue. Go java consistency. :p
 
I'll try that when I get home. Thanks, Will.

EDIT: Had to uninstall the older version with Terminal before it would let me install the new one. But that did work. All is good now.
 
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