v0.5 - not yet released
- Link your wing structures together to make multipanel wings. For
example a classic “polyhedral” glider wing.
- Much improved (and far more buildable) control surface and hinge
designs.
- Support for flat stock trailing edges (similar to the guillows style
wing builds.)
- Vastly improved part nesting in the layout sheets.
- I have actually used the program for some laser cut tests! This is
exciting.
v0.4 - December 27, 2013
- Control surfaces! Specify the hinge line and the start/end station
and your control surface is built automatically. Supports multiple
independant control surfaces per wing.
- Version checking. Alert if a newer version is available for
download.
- Warn if trying to build before all design changes have been saved.
- Delete wings from previous design when opening a new design.
- Spars are now always vertically aligned after rib is rotated for
twist/washout.
- Stringers are always aligned flush/tangent to the surface of the
rib.
- Saved .mad files (xml format) are now beautified rather than all
stuffed together on a single line (better for version control or
human editing.)
- If asking to view the design in 3d, check if file is saved (clean)
and built since last save.
- Fix output of .svg (plans/templates/laser cutter sheets) so they are
created in the same folder as the original .mad file.
v0.3 - December 19, 2013
- Add a suite of examples that illustrate many of the software’s
capabilities.
- Support for curved chord/taper wings. This is done by defining a
spline curve that evaluates to the chord at that point in the wing.
See docs and examples for more details.
- Support for curved sweep wings. This is probably a less useful
feature, but is available nonetheless. Instead of specifying a
sweep angle, a spline curve can define the amount of forward/aft
shift of the wing ribs relative to the span of the wing. Again see
the docs for specific explanation and examples.
v0.2 - December 18, 2013
- Add helper functions for selecting root and tip airfoils.
- Support for separate size root and tip chords (allows generation of
tapered wings.)
- Changes to combo box trigger internal change detection.
- Clean/dirty management, system suggest save if design is changed
before quitting or loading a new design.
- Deleted structures also make the model ‘dirty’ (needs to be saved.)
- Bug fixes. (Found an edge case in the generation of 3d sheeting
that was exposed on wings that blend from one airfoil to another.)
v0.1 - December 15, 2013
- Initial GUI front end interface to working back end build library.
- Single .exe windows version via PyInstaller
- InnoSetup setup packaging for Windows
- Bug fixes when generating 3d model for wings with sweep and
dihedral.
- Integrated creator, builder, and viewer into single GUI.
- Simple XML format for saving model designs.
v0.05 (unreleased) - February 21, 2013
- Switch to using a polygon clipping library for many internal
functions (making cutouts much more robust.)
- Wing skinning
- Shaped lightening holes (that follow the interior contour of the
rib)
- Support for “linked” wing panels (i.e. a polyhedral glider wing.)
- Visualize the exact model that is generated in 3d.
- Variety of bug fixes and clean ups.
v0.0 (unreleased) - February 2, 2013
- Initial revision
- Airfoil blending, scaling, rotation
- Smoothing, resampling, and adaptive fitting of airfoil curves
- Cutting out basic shapes from airfoils for leading/trailing edges,
spars, stringers, lightening holes, etc.
- Best fit of leading edge cutout.
- Best fit of trailing edge stock to airfoil shape.
- Generates actual size build plans
- Supports curved chord/taper function
- Supports curved sweep function
- Higher level function: cut flaps or ailerons into the wing
structure.