Lots more good stuff here. Several cool features as well as some pretty critical bug fixes. Everyone should update.

Under the Geom pull-down, you’ll find a new kind of Geom. The Routing geom is for modeling subsystems that are routed around the vehicle. Think wiring, pneumatics, hydraulics, shafting, etc. The routing geom is a 3D poly-line that can be anchored to multiple Geoms along its route. The length of the route will be calculated. For now, the route has no volume (it is just a polyline) and the corners are sharp. It does not participate in analysis (such as mass properties) or export. It is useful for visualization and calculating the overall length of a route. More capabilities may be added later.

While Routing Geom may seem simple, under the hood there is subtle complexity. Normally a Geom can only depend on its immediate parent (think attachment or Conformal). Updates propagate parent to child down the tree as needed. Conversely, a Routing Geom can depend on multiple Geoms that can be scattered around the tree. This required fairly fundamental changes to the way OpenVSP works. It also means that you can’t attach things to a Routing Geom — we don’t want infinite loops, do you?

You can now assign nicknames or aliases to XSecs on a Stack, Fuse, or Wing. You can name a cross section (‘Bulkhead’ or ‘PlanBreak’) or you can name the space between cross sections (‘Cockpit’ or ‘Wingtip’). These names should make it easier to be organized for tasks like setting up Advanced Links.

You can now change the parent of Geom without resorting to cut/paste. There are now left/right arrows in the Geom Browser that will promote/demote a Geom in the tree. Cut/paste of a Geom would destroy the ParmID’s, which would break any Links and Advanced Links involving those Geoms. This capability allows you to re-organize your model without breaking links and things.

The Geom Browser has received an overhaul. Insted of custom code with ASCII art connections, the Geom Browser now uses the FLTK native tree with pretty line drawing. Visibility and surface mode icons have been added to each row to display and control how Geoms are viewed.

The Python Multifacade has received some fixes and upgrades. The Multifacade enables using multiple OpenVSP models from one Python process. This helps complex MDO problems and also enables coarse parallelization.

Propellers now support control surface subsurfaces. Subsurfaces now have an option to apply to all surfaces of a geom.

Several performance improvements for high tessellation levels and objects with repeated surfaces (props and symmetry). Also some performance improvements for models with high part counts.

There are a bunch of FEA / Structures modeling improvements. A new poly-spar part will improve the parameterization of spars and will fix the spar continuity problems people have had. Beam and shell elements are now written separately for NASTRAN files. Groups of beam elements are now split into chain segments. ‘Spider’ points associated with on-part fixed points are now detected and identified. Later these will be used to improve how assembly connections are set up.

The new CMake 4.0 breaks significant backward compatibility. While this is not a big deal for OpenVSP itself, it breaks many of our library dependencies. If you compile OpenVSP yourself, you must stick with CMake 3.X for now. I’ve updated several of our libraries to work with 4.0, but two will require more extensive work. Hopefully this will be sorted by the next major release.

There are a lot of fixes in this release, some for pretty significant issues including some crashes and model correctness problems. There are also fixes for some creature comforts – multi-view jumping, rotation center change not re-centering, prop curve editor resizing, window size on portrait displays, etc.

The way Attributes applied to Sets are stored in the XML file has been changed, so if you have Attributes on your Sets, you’ll need to re-do them.

There are a handful of FEA / Structures modeling fixes too. NASTRAN PSHELL property cards now sport a MID3 value. BC’s can now be applied to off-body fixed points. Symmetrical fixed points can now be used when building assembly connections.

Features:

• Routing Geom
• Aliases for XSecs, connected to Advanced Linking
• Geom Browser refresh, visibility and surface mode icons added
• Change parent/child of Geom without destruction, preserves ParmIDs
• Performance improvements with large Geom count
• General speedups to Update process, particularly high tess & symmetry
• Multifacade support matured across package
• Unit test infrastructure improved, Python and AngelScript sample code
• Prop direction of rotation marker location adjustable
• Add ‘all’ option to subsurface surface ID for multi-surface geoms
• Support control surface subsurfaces for Props
• Write beam and shell elements separately for NASTRAN
• Break FEA beam element groups into chain segments
• Add FEA Poly Spar to fix spar continuity problems
• Make FEA trimming support Poly Spar
• Find and identify fixed point spider points for future use

Library Updates:

• Update various libraries to support CMake 4.0
• Update Code-Eli to version that supports average_normal computation

Build System:

• Force CMake 3.X for GitHub Actions build

Fixes:

• Fix storage of NVD collections
• Fix treatment of propeller curve editor resizing
• Fix out-of-date Link-able Parm List
• Fix wake identification for VSPAERO
• Fix storage of Sets with Attributes
• Fix PropGeom::UpdateMainTessVec() not getting called
• Fix and clean up proliferation of DeaultShell/Beam
• Fixes view jumping when changing views with multi-view. Thanks Chris S.
• Fix re-centering of view when changing center of rotation
• Fix missed update of Geoms with ancestral symmetry
• Fix calculation of t parameter from uv.
• VSPAERO GUI moment reference point inaccessible
• Fix default window size on portrait displays
• Stipple engine highlight curves to improve visibility
• Make file choosers work with suggested file name
• Don’t clear filename when changing directories in SelectFileScreen
• Fix NASTRAN PSHELL property cards MID3 value
• Allow writing BC’s on of-body fixed points
• Correct fixed point Set name in NASTRAN dat file
• Fix choice of symmetrical fixed points when building assembly connections