New CustomGeom Scripts Available on Airshow: Parametric Fuselage Generator & Passenger Seat Group Array

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Jaime García

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Jul 10, 2026, 3:24:13 PM (5 days ago) Jul 10
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Hi OpenVSP Community,

I hope this email finds you well.

I would like to share with the community that I have uploaded two new CustomGeom scripts to the Airshow repository. These components are designed to streamline the conceptual design, internal packaging, and cabin configuration layouts of commercial transport aircraft.

They are fully available for download and testing. Here is a brief overview of what each script offers:

  1. Parametric Fuselage Generator: https://airshow.openvsp.org/vsp/Glazm021V3JueLPKNoL0

    An advanced fuselage generator that simultaneously handles external Outer Mold Lines (OML) and internal cabin layouts. It features a multi-layer architecture (independent visualization toggles for the external skin, passenger cabin, and cargo holds), an automated smart tangency solver for smooth nose/windshield surface transitions, and dynamic safety boundaries to prevent invalid or self-intersecting meshes.

  2. Parametric Passenger Seat Group Array: https://airshow.openvsp.org/vsp/YZyo27qOAcyW0ysYrgts

    This script is based on and expanded from the default "SeatGroup" custom geometry script included in OpenVSP's standard CustomScripts. It has been upgraded into a highly parametric tool to rapidly generate, space, and clone multi-row passenger seating layouts. It allows configuring rows into three independent seating blocks (Left, Middle, and Right), adjusting seat pitch, recline, and aisle clearances. It features an integrated dynamic alignment engine that automatically centers the entire group at the local y=0 coordinate line, regardless of the column combination you choose.

Both scripts use meters as their default base unit but are fully scalable to feet, inches, or any other unit system using native OpenVSP transformation tools.

To make them easy to implement, I have attached the detailed user manuals and reference guides in PDF format. These documents cover all parameter descriptions, cross-dependencies, and advanced use cases for multi-class cabin layout optimization.

I hope you find these tools useful for your aerospace projects. Any feedback, suggestions, or bug reports are highly appreciated!

Best regards,

Jaime


Parametric Passenger Seat Group Array.pdf
Parametric Fuselage Generator Guide.pdf

Rob McDonald

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Jul 14, 2026, 12:54:51 PM (22 hours ago) Jul 14
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I love these -- thanks for sharing them.

They obviously pound the performance of custom geoms and a few other things.  I'll try to find some time to run these under a profiler and see if there is anything that can be done to speed things up...

Rob

Jaime García

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Jul 14, 2026, 7:03:26 PM (16 hours ago) Jul 14
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Hi Rob,

Thank you so much for the kind words and for taking the time to test the scripts! I truly appreciate your offer to run them under a profiler—any insights you might have on optimizing the performance would be incredibly valuable, so I would be very grateful for your help with that.

Just to keep you in the loop, I have actually been working on an even more advanced version of the fuselage generator. I have recently added an additional tab that allows for the parametric inclusion of galleys, closets, and lavatories. It significantly helps in tackling those more complex aspects of internal packaging.

Looking ahead, my next development goal is to implement a more realistic windshield geometry, as that is currently the main area I'm looking to improve.

Let me know if you would be interested in testing this updated version, or if you’d prefer to start by profiling the existing ones. Either way, thank you again for your interest and support!

Best regards,

Jaime

Rob McDonald

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Jul 14, 2026, 8:03:56 PM (15 hours ago) Jul 14
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The profiler won't actually be able to look into the details of the script.  It will bin performance into either VSP code or Script code -- perhaps if I'm lucky, it'll show me UpdateSurf vs. UpdateGUI (the only routines that run repeatedly in the script), but I'm sure all the time will go into UpdateSurf.

When UpdateSurf calls back out to VSP code, I'll have some transparency there.

My thought is that I might be able to make CloneSurf more sophisticated.  Right now, it copies the surface itself -- but the tessellation, feature lines, etc. are all recomputed.

For PropGeom and GearGeom, I've made the update process smart enough to re-use the tessellation and feature lines for duplicated components.  Depending on where the profiler says the time goes, there might be room for improvement there.

The current versions are plenty complex enough for me to play with -- and if I am able to make improvements, they will translate to your new versions (or possibly with some modifications that will be the same across the board).

Rob


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Rob McDonald

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Jul 14, 2026, 8:24:26 PM (15 hours ago) Jul 14
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I just took a quick look -- I'm not going to be able to help much (any).

The time is not going into tessellation or feature lines.  It is all going into SkinXSecSurf.

I was working with the Fuselage example with everything turned on (not the seats).  So, if you aren't using CloneSurf in the Fuselage example, that will be your biggest speedup.

I checked the seats example and you use CloneSurf there -- but I haven't checked if you use it in the Fuselage example.

Rob


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