feat: Implement 3D flight animation methods using Vedo (Issue #523) by GuilhermeAsura · Pull Request #909 · RocketPy-Team/RocketPy

GuilhermeAsura · 2025-12-06T03:50:22Z

Pull request type

Code changes (bugfix, features)
Code maintenance (refactoring, formatting, tests)

Checklist

Tests for the changes have been added (if needed)
Docs have been reviewed and added / updated
Lint (black rocketpy/ tests/) has passed locally
All tests (pytest tests -m slow --runslow) have passed locally
CHANGELOG.md has been updated (if relevant)

Current behavior

Currently, the Flight class lacks built-in methods for 3D visualization of the simulation results. Users wishing to visualize the rocket's trajectory or attitude must export data and use external tools or write custom scripts. This addresses Issue #523.

New behavior

This PR integrates 3D visualization capabilities directly into the Flight class using the vedo library.

Key Changes:

New Methods in Flight:
- animate_trajectory(file_name, start, stop, time_step): Visualizes the 6-DOF translation of the rocket relative to the ground.
- animate_rotate(file_name, start, stop, time_step): Visualizes the specific attitude (rotation) of the rocket during flight.
Optional Dependency:
- Added vedo as an optional dependency in pyproject.toml under the [animation] key.
- Users can install it via pip install rocketpy[animation].
Error Handling:
- Both methods check for the existence of vedo and raise a descriptive ImportError with installation instructions if it is missing.
Refactoring:
- Ported original logic from the legacy animate_flight branch to match the current Flight class structure (e.g., removing deprecated postProcess calls).

Breaking change

No

Additional information

Acknowledgements

This feature was originally developed by Patrick Sampaio in the animate_flight branch. This PR adapts that work to the modern develop branch structure and newer RocketPy architecture.

Verification

A modular verification suite was added in tests/animation_verification/ to generate a dummy 3D model and test the invocation of the animation methods.

Gui-FernandesBR · 2025-12-06T14:50:59Z

@GuilhermeAsura could you please fix tests and linters on CI?

GuilhermeAsura · 2025-12-06T15:55:19Z

@GuilhermeAsura could you please fix tests and linters on CI?

I'm on it!

- Ported methods from legacy 'animate_flight' branch - Adapted to new Flight class structure (removed postProcess) - Added vedo as optional dependency Co-authored-by: Patrick Sampaio

Gui-FernandesBR

the code coverall looks good, but needs refactor.

We can still add it to the next release (this month)

Copilot

Copilot encountered an error and was unable to review this pull request. You can try again by re-requesting a review.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 7 changed files in this pull request and generated 21 comments.

- Ported methods from legacy 'animate_flight' branch - Adapted to new Flight class structure (removed postProcess) - Added vedo as optional dependency Co-authored-by: Patrick Sampaio

…ilhermeAsura/RocketPy into pr/909

Gui-FernandesBR · 2026-03-14T16:24:15Z

Before we merge this PR, some points should be addressed:

all plotting methods should be defined withing the plots/ folder
the vedo package should be added as an optional requirement
Unit tests are needed
CHANGELOG.md should be updated
The code should be formatted and linted
All the comments raised by reviewers should be addressed

- Implemented 3D flight trajectory and attitude animations in the Flight plots layer. - Added methods `animate_trajectory` and `animate_rotate` to visualize rocket flight. - Included validation for animation inputs and error handling for missing STL files. - Updated documentation to reflect new animation features and installation requirements. - Added optional dependency for `vedo` in `requirements-optional.txt`. - Created a default STL model for the rocket. - Removed outdated animation verification tests and replaced them with unit tests for new animation methods.

codecov · 2026-03-14T17:50:49Z

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 87.93103% with 14 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 81.16%. Comparing base (9cf3dd4) to head (c3afff0).
⚠️ Report is 72 commits behind head on develop.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
rocketpy/plots/flight_plots.py	87.93%	14 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff             @@
##           develop     #909      +/-   ##
===========================================
+ Coverage    80.27%   81.16%   +0.89%     
===========================================
  Files          104      113       +9     
  Lines        12769    14658    +1889     
===========================================
+ Hits         10250    11897    +1647     
- Misses        2519     2761     +242

☔ View full report in Codecov by Sentry.
📢 Have feedback on the report? Share it here.

🚀 New features to boost your workflow:

❄️ Test Analytics: Detect flaky tests, report on failures, and find test suite problems.

…ion_methods # Conflicts: # CHANGELOG.md

Gui-FernandesBR · 2026-05-27T00:53:02Z

I am working on this one locally

Reference vedo classes directly instead of capitalized local aliases (invalid-name), drop useless returns, and silence too-many-statements on the animate methods to match the file convention. Lint now scores 10/10 and ruff is clean. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Keep the PR scoped to the animation feature; requests/pytz pinning was unrelated. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

GuilhermeAsura requested a review from a team as a code owner December 6, 2025 03:50

GuilhermeAsura added 5 commits December 8, 2025 21:25

build: add 'vedo' as optional dependency for animation

8cd8ecc

feat: add animate_trajectory and animate_rotate to Flight class

5161699

- Ported methods from legacy 'animate_flight' branch - Adapted to new Flight class structure (removed postProcess) - Added vedo as optional dependency Co-authored-by: Patrick Sampaio

test: add modular verification suite for 3D animation methods

62912d7

maint: fix unused variables and pin requests>=2.25.0 for CI stability

62aef8b

style: format verification scripts and pin pytz>=2020.1 for CI stability

aebdf6a

Gui-FernandesBR force-pushed the feature/add_animation_methods branch from 4a29817 to aebdf6a Compare December 9, 2025 00:25

Gui-FernandesBR requested a review from Copilot December 9, 2025 00:26

Gui-FernandesBR reviewed Dec 9, 2025

View reviewed changes

Comment thread rocketpy/simulation/flight.py

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of Gui-FernandesBR December 9, 2025 00:28 View session

Gui-FernandesBR reviewed Dec 9, 2025

View reviewed changes

Comment thread tests/animation_verification/rocket_stl.py Outdated

Gui-FernandesBR reviewed Dec 9, 2025

View reviewed changes

Gui-FernandesBR linked an issue Dec 9, 2025 that may be closed by this pull request

ENH: adds an 3D animation of flight trajectory #523

Open

Copilot AI reviewed Dec 9, 2025

View reviewed changes

Gui-FernandesBR requested a review from Copilot December 11, 2025 18:40

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of Gui-FernandesBR December 11, 2025 18:41 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Dec 11, 2025

View reviewed changes

GuilhermeAsura and others added 8 commits January 10, 2026 22:21

build: add 'vedo' as optional dependency for animation

b8f31f0

feat: add animate_trajectory and animate_rotate to Flight class

fc8983f

- Ported methods from legacy 'animate_flight' branch - Adapted to new Flight class structure (removed postProcess) - Added vedo as optional dependency Co-authored-by: Patrick Sampaio

test: add modular verification suite for 3D animation methods

c330be7

maint: fix unused variables and pin requests>=2.25.0 for CI stability

977cecf

style: format verification scripts and pin pytz>=2020.1 for CI stability

4bc2f43

make format

09a9b6f

Merge branch 'develop' into feature/add_animation_methods

c89bd26

Merge branch 'feature/add_animation_methods' of https://github.com/Gu…

5fd453b

…ilhermeAsura/RocketPy into pr/909

Gui-FernandesBR self-assigned this Mar 14, 2026

Gui-FernandesBR assigned GuilhermeAsura Mar 14, 2026

Copilot AI mentioned this pull request Apr 6, 2026

feat: Implement 3D flight animation methods using Vedo (Issue #523) #950

Closed

9 tasks

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/develop' into feature/add_animat…

dee11d1

…ion_methods # Conflicts: # CHANGELOG.md

Gui-FernandesBR and others added 3 commits May 26, 2026 21:57

MNT: revert unrelated requirements.txt version pins

c3afff0

Keep the PR scoped to the animation feature; requests/pytz pinning was unrelated. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

add feature to the documentation

ab5ef3d

Uh oh!

Conversation

GuilhermeAsura commented Dec 6, 2025

Pull request type

Checklist

Current behavior

New behavior

Breaking change

Additional information

Acknowledgements

Verification

Uh oh!

Gui-FernandesBR commented Dec 6, 2025

Uh oh!

GuilhermeAsura commented Dec 6, 2025

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Gui-FernandesBR left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Copilot AI left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Copilot AI left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Pull request overview

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Gui-FernandesBR commented Mar 14, 2026

Uh oh!

codecov Bot commented Mar 14, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Codecov Report

Uh oh!

Gui-FernandesBR commented May 27, 2026

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

codecov Bot commented Mar 14, 2026 •

edited

Loading