Add a thrust vectoring python script example

[seanmcleod70]

Based on a user asking how to make use of thrust vectoring in JSBSim in - #1279

[codecov]

Codecov Report

All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests ✅

Project coverage is 24.76%. Comparing base (f794e04) to head (1d92d9d).
Report is 1 commits behind head on master.

Additional details and impacted files

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  Misses      14744    14744           

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[bcoconni]

Nice ! 👍

Your PR just made me realize that we are not advertising about the Python example scripts in README.md. May be you could take the opportunity of your PR to update README.md to point to examples/python where visitors could find some non trivial examples of what JSBSim is capable of using Python ?

[agodemar]

@seanmcleod70 @bcoconni
If you agree, I can advertise the Python scripting feature of JSBSim on my LinkedIn account. I usually get a lot of impressions there on this kind of topic.

[seanmcleod70]

I've pushed a commit with an update to the README.md. Feel free to edit it.

@agodemar no problem with you advertising these Python scripting examples on LinkedIn. But rather than just pointing to the README.md and/or source code in the repo I think the post would have more impact if you included the example output plots from some/all of the current Python examples.

[agodemar]

@seanmcleod70 What about pointing to Jupyter notebooks that render the plots?

[seanmcleod70]

Yep, one option is to convert the 4 samples from stand-alone Python scripts to Jupyter notebooks.

[agodemar]

@seanmcleod70 Something along the line of these notebooks: https://github.com/agodemar/WiReS/tree/master/calc

But all made using the JSBSim interface to Python.

[seanmcleod70]

Okay, I've converted all 4 standalone Python scripts to individual Jupyter notebooks. Easiest way to double-check them is to view the Jupyter notebooks via Github's automatic Jupyter notebook rendering by viewing them in my branch.

https://github.com/seanmcleod70/jsbsim/tree/ThrustVectoringExample/examples/python

I've done the bare minimum to turn them into Jupyter notebooks for now. We could later on make some of them interactive by using ipywidgets to allow a user to use a slider to select for example the airspeed etc. and have the graph update as the slider is moved etc.

The advantage of the Jupyter notebook approach is that users who don't have Python installed, or don't have matplotlib etc. installed can view the code and the generated output simply by viewing them via Github's automatic Jupyter notebook rendering, given there are saved versions of the matplotlib output in the notebooks.

[seanmcleod70]

I've pushed another commit which stores the cached matplotlib plot outputs as SVG instead of PNG since the PNGs looked really 'fuzzy/soft'.

Take a look at the notebooks at - https://github.com/seanmcleod70/jsbsim/tree/ThrustVectoringExample/examples/python to see what the plot outputs look like now as SVG renderings.

So @agodemar when you post links now we'll have much better looking plots 😉

[bcoconni]

Explain the meaning of the acronyms (AoA = Angle of Attack, CAS=Calibrated Air Speed, cg=center of gravity, etc.)

[seanmcleod70]

I've pushed a commit spelling out the acronyms. I did sort of assume that users of JSBSim would know these already 😉

[bcoconni]

I agree with you, but I think we should avoid using acronyms and technical jargon, at least in the README file. Since it's our homepage, it shouldn't intimidate potential users who don't have an aeronautical background — I'm particularly thinking of game developers who might want to use JSBSim with the Unreal Engine.

[bcoconni]

Looks good to me.