hi,

i'm back after many years away. my posts say unknown users, since I had Michael delete my account. at the time I started this thread I was evaluating moi v2. I ended up going with rhino because I thought it would be more inline with what PROP_DESIGN users may have wanted. however, after many years of using it, I have grown tired of the constant battle to get it to create valid solid models. when rhino 6 came out and the users panned it, I looked at MoI again. Everyone was raving about MoI v4. So I decided to make the switch to MoI. I had thought that since rhino worked with PROP_DESIGN xyz files out of the box and that there was a large amount of 3rd party plugins, rhino would be the way to go for most PROP_DESIGN users. However, the plugin community has pretty much died and MoI can work with xyz files. So I have already been recommending MoI for awhile now, instead of Rhino.

I am still making the blade models manually. Which can take a really long time. The worst part is the last step sometimes will never work. That is making the root fillet. It would often break the model in Rhino. Oddly, it's a model by model issue. Some models have no problems. Others you can fight with it for awhile and get a valid model. Other models will never make a valid solid. So it's nothing I am doing, as far as I can tell. I will be interested to see how MoI does. It can't be any worse, so I figure what the heck.

In any event, if anyone has spare time and would be interested in trying to completely automate the creation of solid propeller/fan/turbofan blades, let me know. I think this would be a very useful thing for a lot of people. If a blade model can be created automatically in a second or two. That will save at least an hour per blade model, if not more. That adds up over time. I made a video showing the issues involved. The main thing is I want to be able to read in the xyz files and then have a dialog to select what sort of profile you want to use. Then have the model created. The blade count would need to be known as well. This would be a very involved task. I don't know for sure if MoI can be automated to the extent needed. I just figured I would ask. If no one can do it or is willing to do it, that's ok too. I'm just glade to never have to use Rhino again. What a kick to the shorts that was.

The video talking about the things involved with the automation is here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5DF822U89w&index=2&list=PLzGiietqAECXnIFl6ngHvhzgBxgTrC_qW&t=0s

If you want to know about the version of PROP_DESIGN that makes the xyz files, that video is here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jco0EqEa8Jw&t=0s&list=PLzGiietqAECXbwWGhodSW6Lni51Tj8Q_U&index=6

Also, note that there was many changes to PROP_DESIGN since bemfarmer recoded the xyz portion. So they would no longer be the same. I'm more interesting in the blade creation past the xyz files though. There isn't a need to recode xyz.

Sincerely,

Anthony Falzone

Developer of PROP_DESIGN
Public domain aircraft propeller/fan/turbofan design and analysis software
https://propdesign.jimdo.com/