Although this version comes less than two months after the last, the improvements it contains have been in the works for nearly a year. This version contains a bunch of infrastructure changes that will be appreciated by serious OpenVSP users. There are also a handful of smaller features and fixes that everyone will enjoy.

The biggest feature in this version is the addition of Attributes. Attributes were developed by Tim Cuatt — thanks much Tim. Attributes are a mechanism to add metadata to just bout anything in OpenVSP. You can use this metadata for whatever you want. Perhaps you want to make a note of where the value of a certain parameter came from, or perhaps you want to add auxiliary information that will be used by some downstream analysis tool.

Attributes are Name / Value pairs that can be associated with Parms, Geoms, Vehicle, Measures, Advanced Links, etc. Their value can be a string, bool, int, double, vec3d, a vector, or a matrix. The user can interact with Attributes through the GUI or the API.

A few special case Attributes have been built-in to models. First is a Watermark capability. You can set the text, color, and size of a text box that will be superimposed on top fo the 3D window. You might use this to add proprietary markings to a file. Second is a general Notes capability. You can think of this as a journal that you keep with a file.

It is always exciting to see what users do with new features — Attributes will certainly be another example of this. More than most things we add, Attributes are an unstructured feature meant to be used however the user deems fit. Go forth and attribute!

Sets and Variable Presets are two features that new users often find confusing, but that experienced users find essential. Modes is a new feature that combines Sets and Variable Presets. This will be even more powerful for experienced users — but hopefully will be within reach of novices. If you haven’t ever used Sets or Variable Presets, now is the time to level-up, learn about them, and add Modes to your skillset.

By popular demand, OpenVSP now calculates the MAC of a wing. It also calculates a new reference area called Scurve. Scurve will only differ from Stot when blending is used. Scurve takes into account the curved LE and TE of the wing, while Stot is meerely the sum of the areas of the trapezoidal base segments for a wing. The MAC and Scurve are now available for use as VSPAERO reference quantities.

The Python API facade has been extended to support the ‘Multi-Facade’. The multi-facade will allow one Python process to interact with multiple OpenVSP models simultaneously via the API. Each OpenVSP model resides in a separate instance, each loaded in a dedicated Python process.

There are a scattering of more features and fixes all around. The descriptions below are pretty self explanatory, so I won’t belabor them here. Update to the latest and enjoy.

Features:

• Attributes added as means to attach metadata to many things in OpenVSP.
• Attribute interaction added throughout OpenVSP GUI.
• Modes added as concept combining Sets and Variable Presets.
• Modes interaction added to all analysis and export capabilities.
• Re-write Variable Presets to be ID based instead of index based.
• New Variable Presets GUI.
• Added Watermark that can be displayed on OpenVSP screen.
• Added Notes editor for tracking general model information.
• Added Multi-facade mode to Python API
• Added warning when GUI windows exceed 800 pixels tall.
• New Measure GUI to fit in 800 pixel limit.
• Improve resizability of numerous GUIs.
• Add new CHANGELOG.md file with release notes for all past versions.
• Add creation of vspscript test code from API documentation examples.
• Add SplitWingXSec to API.
• Calculate MAC for wings.
• Calculate Scurve, a Sref that includes curved LE/TE.
• Make MAC & Scurve available as reference quantities for VSPAERO.

Library Updates:

• Update Code-Eli to support calculation of MAC.

Build system:

• Build on MacOS with LLVM/CLang, not XCode.
• Now build VSPAERO on MacOS entirely with CLang & libomp, not GCC.

Fixes:

• Fix view inconsistencies with ManageViewScreen open.
• Fix view updating from API.
• Fix problem with OpenGL detection on startup.
• Clean up verbose search for Help files.
• Silence echo of reference parameters from VSPAERO API Analysis.
• Fix conformal components on custom components.
• Fix many issues with API example code – both Python and C++