OpenRocket 13.05 released

Rex R said:

that works, but you have to do it every time you run the program, guess this is one of those 'undocumented features' .
rex

Click to expand...

I have to do it every time I open the window.

qquake2k said:

I have to do it every time I open the window.

Click to expand...

me too.

then by definition it is not a 'glitch' it is a 'bug'(bugs are repeatable errors, glitches are intermittent at best).
rex

I introduced that bad behavior when I added multisort. The sorting process is stable, so if you sort on column 1 then sort on column 2, the resulting order will be "by column 2 by column 1". The bug I introduced is I forgot to presort the motors by something reasonable. Sorry about that.

Kevin

qquake2k said:

I love Open Rocket, and want to thank everyone who has a hand in bringing it to us! As for feedback, my biggest annoyance with v13.05 so far is the select motors interface. With v12.09 when you opened the select motor window, it defaulted to sort by manufacturer name then motor size. But with v13.05, it looks like it defaults to motor diameter, then nothing. If you click at the top of a column to sort that column, it doesn't automatically sort the column next to it. In other words, in v13.05 if you sort by mfg name it doesn't then sort by motor designation. Very hard to choose a motor this way.

Click to expand...

One thing I would love to see is reorientation of fin templates when saving to PDF.

Currently, fins are orientated across the page. Which is fine IF your fin is shorter than 8.5 inches.

The trouble is if you have a longer fin, it takes up two pages.

There is already so much wasted paper by just having one fin on a page....why not make it so larger fins are orientated vertically so they fit the page?

paul.nortness said:

One thing I would love to see is reorientation of fin templates when saving to PDF.

Currently, fins are orientated across the page. Which is fine IF your fin is shorter than 8.5 inches.

The trouble is if you have a longer fin, it takes up two pages.

There is already so much wasted paper by just having one fin on a page....why not make it so larger fins are orientated vertically so they fit the page?

Click to expand...

You can change the orientation and choose letter or legal. Just click on "Settings" before you print. This was in 12.09 too, but I only recently discovered it.

Well how about that! Thanks for pointing that one out!

I've been playing around with the decals...love it!

Sampo and Friends,

I have liked version 12 and like version 13 even better. I like the new views and that you added a parts database (even if limited right now). I understand OR is an evolving work in progress. When asked by people about OR vs RocSim, I tell them that RocSim is just a little better, but for $120 a pop, it should be WAY better than it is. Let me tell you "THANK YOU VERY MUCH!". I can honestly say I would not be at the level of rocketry I am if it weren't for OR, because I would probably not pay $120 for RocSim. My son, who is not as into rockets as me, has started to play with OR and see what he can dream up, even if it would never fly in the real world.

I hope you take the comments here as "Helpful critiques" and not "Critisism". Very good software. There are thousands of people enjoying rocketry more, and at a higher level, because you guys spent the hundreds/thousands of hours of hard work.

THANKS!

CZ Brat said:

Sampo and Friends,

I have liked version 12 and like version 13 even better. I like the new views and that you added a parts database (even if limited right now). I understand OR is an evolving work in progress. When asked by people about OR vs RocSim, I tell them that RocSim is just a little better, but for $120 a pop, it should be WAY better than it is. Let me tell you "THANK YOU VERY MUCH!". I can honestly say I would not be at the level of rocketry I am if it weren't for OR, because I would probably not pay $120 for RocSim. My son, who is not as into rockets as me, has started to play with OR and see what he can dream up, even if it would never fly in the real world.

I hope you take the comments here as "Helpful critiques" and not "Critisism". Very good software. There are thousands of people enjoying rocketry more, and at a higher level, because you guys spent the hundreds/thousands of hours of hard work.

THANKS!

Click to expand...

HERE HERE!

got a good chuckle when I saw what the motor textures look like (3-d unfinished view)...like the 'motorjet' texture . and then I found that you can play with the light source(left click&drag in the preview pane).
rex

Hi all,
I downloaded this amd opened it with winzip but I'll be darned if I can open it. I can't find the install or open file.Please help with any Ideas. Thanks

Hi,

The file you downloaded should have been named OpenRocket-13.05.jar You need to open it with Java and not WinZip. There is no install process - the only thing you need is this jar file. When you open it with Java the program will execute.

Apparently when you installed Winzip, you told it to open .jar files. This is file, Winzip knows how to treat .jar files as an archive (collection of files), but doesn't know how to run them. If you are running windows you might try right click on the OpenRocket jar file, then select Open With and find Java.

You might need to install Java (if it's not already on there). You can download it from https://java.com/en/download/index.jsp Oracle makes you click on a bunch of things and really tries to get you to install the "Ask Toolbar". I never install "Ask Toolbar" because, well, what do I need with their toolbar.

Kevin

I've been having a ball with the new features. Keep up the good work guys and thanks.

Kruland,
Hey thank you for your help I did as you said and easy peasy after that !
This forum is cool I'm a born again rocketeer. Thank all of you for providing a place to look around and learn from your expertise.

Sampo and all,

First thank you so much for the enjoyment that you have provided to this born again rocketeer. My son was working on his space exploration merit badge for boy scouts and I was telling him how we used to design and build rockets by attaching a string to find CG, making a cardboard template to find CP and swinging it on the string over our heads to test for stability. That got me to thinking, "There must be a better way now," and a quick Google search led me to OpenRocket. I was even happier when I discovered the price because, just to goof around with, I would never have shelled out the money for RocSim.

I do have a question though. As I got back into rocketry, I found what I thought was a really cool Design of the Month on the Estes website. It is a spin stabilized, 2 stage rocket called the Tao. I decided that would be the first rocket that I was going to build since coming back into the hobby. After it was built, I found several threads on TRF saying that it is a potentially unstable design.:cry: In fact one even claimed that the designer was never able to get it to fly, but submitted the design anyway. So I never flew it; however, when I found out OR could simulate spin stabilization I decided to try it out to see what it said.

I modeled it in OR12.09.1(1). Since I could not accurately model the "dog-legged" fins, I decided to try canting the entire fin to introduce the rotation. When I got the cant to around 6 degrees it showed the design as stable with a predicted altitude of 1428ft! I was ecstatic, there might be hope for this rocket yet. However, now with the release of OR13.05 this rocket remains unstable no matter how far I cant the fins. I have attached the Tao model. Can someone please explain what happened?

PS. Now that OR13 has the ability to model booster stage recovery, I will have to add that to the model Thank You!:clap:

View attachment Tao.ork

Bill,

The bug you are experiencing is pretty common in 13.05. Many people are running into it. The problem occurs when there are booster stages with tumble recovery. Basically, the code which changes from the "standard" simulation algorithm to the tumble simulation algorithm is not aggressive enough. The simulation experiences numerical instability after booster burn out but before moving to tumble recovery.

Anyway, There are a couple of ways to work around this until a fixed version comes out. 1) you can play with the simulation timestep. Sometimes setting this to really small like 0.0001 will make the algorithm work correctly (please note, the ui doesn't display values this small but does allow you to enter them). 2) you can add some kind of recovery to the booster - even if you don't plan on building it this way. For example, if you put even a tiny streamer in booster stage (with 0 mass), and have it deploy on ejection, the software will switch to recovery mode before experiencing the numerical instability. Of course, the recovery velocity of the booster won't be accurate.

I did run your model against my new, unreleased, code, and the new algorithm seems to be a little better behaved, but clearly there is some more work to do.

Kevin

Mr Rocket said:

Sampo and all,

First thank you so much for the enjoyment that you have provided to this born again rocketeer. My son was working on his space exploration merit badge for boy scouts and I was telling him how we used to design and build rockets by attaching a string to find CG, making a cardboard template to find CP and swinging it on the string over our heads to test for stability. That got me to thinking, "There must be a better way now," and a quick Google search led me to OpenRocket. I was even happier when I discovered the price because, just to goof around with, I would never have shelled out the money for RocSim.

I do have a question though. As I got back into rocketry, I found what I thought was a really cool Design of the Month on the Estes website. It is a spin stabilized, 2 stage rocket called the Tao. I decided that would be the first rocket that I was going to build since coming back into the hobby. After it was built, I found several threads on TRF saying that it is a potentially unstable design.:cry: In fact one even claimed that the designer was never able to get it to fly, but submitted the design anyway. So I never flew it; however, when I found out OR could simulate spin stabilization I decided to try it out to see what it said.

I modeled it in OR12.09.1(1). Since I could not accurately model the "dog-legged" fins, I decided to try canting the entire fin to introduce the rotation. When I got the cant to around 6 degrees it showed the design as stable with a predicted altitude of 1428ft! I was ecstatic, there might be hope for this rocket yet. However, now with the release of OR13.05 this rocket remains unstable no matter how far I cant the fins. I have attached the Tao model. Can someone please explain what happened?

PS. Now that OR13 has the ability to model booster stage recovery, I will have to add that to the model Thank You!:clap:

Click to expand...

Kevin,

Thanks for the reply. That explains something. At the end of my post I stated, "Now that OR13 has the ability to model booster stage recovery, I will have to add that to the model". I meant to say add the parachute to the booster.

After I made the post, I added the parachute to the booster and the problem went away. Now I know why!

Not sure if this is the right place to post this. Let me know if not.

I'm unable to get decals working in OpenRocket 13.05 under Mac OS X 10.7.4. If I load one of the example rockets the decals display correctly. However if I try to select a file of my own as a decal, the result is that the component changes to a different solid color and there is no sign of the decal image. In fact it seems to use the color of the upper leftmost pixel of the image file to color the entire component.

In addition if I try to edit a decal file, it apparently only edits some temporary file, and if I change the selection in the Repeat dropdown menu it reverts back to the un-edited file (or rather, the upper leftmost pixel of it.)

Rich Holmes said:

Not sure if this is the right place to post this. Let me know if not.

I'm unable to get decals working in OpenRocket 13.05 under Mac OS X 10.7.4. If I load one of the example rockets the decals display correctly. However if I try to select a file of my own as a decal, the result is that the component changes to a different solid color and there is no sign of the decal image. In fact it seems to use the color of the upper leftmost pixel of the image file to color the entire component.

In addition if I try to edit a decal file, it apparently only edits some temporary file, and if I change the selection in the Repeat dropdown menu it reverts back to the un-edited file (or rather, the upper leftmost pixel of it.)

Click to expand...

Can you post the decal file you are trying to use? Another thing I'd like you to try is to export a decal from one of the sample files and try to apply it to you rocket.

The second thing you noticed is probably a bug. I'll try to reproduce I it.

Kevin

kruland said:

Can you post the decal file you are trying to use? Another thing I'd like you to try is to export a decal from one of the sample files and try to apply it to you rocket.

Click to expand...

I was pretty much just trying any old GIF, JPG, or PNG files I had around, just to try the decal features out. Thinking they might be too big I quickly made a little 100 x 100 graphic but it doesn't work either:

View attachment 140510
But I tried your suggestion, exporting the fin decal from "Apocalypse With Decals" (that is, I opened it in a graphics editor — same one I used to create the above graphic — and saved it from there). It works.
View attachment 140511

Had no problem running OR earlier .... now I get THIS when viewing 3D. A fix anyone?