Tutorials, training, and best practices for designing and analyzing with Open Vehicle Sketch Pad
Blanks serve as excellent reference points in your model. This is perhaps most evident in the use of Blanks as Parent components for groups or as offset coordinate systems among various subsystems. When importing or aligning geometries in OpenVSP, Blanks act as the relative displacement between various systems without resorting to moving individual components one-by-one.
This tutorial demonstrates how to use Blank components to allocate point mass to your model. This is accomplished by activating the Point Mass button under the Mass tab in the Blank component window and entering the desired mass. Note that mass should be entered in the same units as elsewhere in your model and that you should always try to keep your units similar among components.
This video introduces the Blank component and some of the many relevant features and capabilities enabled with its use. For example, Blanks may be used as reference points for other components, as Parent components for groups, as point masses, as measurement tools, and combined to perform complex transformations.
This tutorial demonstrates how to apply component scaling using the Scale parameter in the XForm tab. Note that scaling may be performed multiple times or all at once. You may also perform a group scaling operation by selecting multiple components and using the Group Modifications window. Until you click ‘Accept’ the scale will be saved with your model and you can reset to 1.0.
This tutorial explains how to apply Gen or XForm parameters such as scale, material, and color to multiple OpenVSP components at once using the Group Modification window. Simply select multiple components by using Select All, ctrl + click, or click-and-drag to access this feature.