Looking for some fin patterns

[LeeCrenshaw]

Hello, I am hoping someone can help me out with some fin patterns for these rockets : the Goblin, Avenger, and Fatboy. I need them in a .pdf format. I can't seem to print anything in the Quicktime format.
If you happen to know the tube lengths for them, that would be great too.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[pantherjon]

Fat Boy tube length is 8"

[jay]

The Goblin body tube is a 9.00'' BT-55

[jay]

The K-38 Avenger has a 2.75'' BT-55 booster tube, a 16.35'' BT-55 upper stage tube, and a 7.75'' BT-50 payload section

[Solomoriah]

I can't seem to print anything in the Quicktime format.
If you are seeing Quicktime when you open image files, it indicates that you don't have a proper image editing or viewing application on your computer. What operating system are you running?

[Ltvscout]

Hello, I am hoping someone can help me out with some fin patterns for these rockets : the Goblin, Avenger, and Fatboy. I need them in a .pdf format. I can't seem to print anything in the Quicktime format.
If you happen to know the tube lengths for them, that would be great too.
The Fat Boy plans are on my site here:

http://www.oldrocketplans.com/estes/est1273/est1273.htm

The first pic will allow you to download the pdf of the whole set including the fin pattern.

For body tubes, you need to look on my Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe site (http://www.rocketshoppe.com) under Building Tips. The direct link to body tube sizes can be found here:

http://www.rocketshoppe.com/info/Estes_Body_Tube_List.pdf

[LeeCrenshaw]

Wow ! A lot of help here. OK, so now I have tube lengths for everything, and I have a fin pattern for the FatBoy. I just need the fin patterns for the Avenger and the Goblin.

Solomoriah, I am running Windows XP home. If you have a fix for this, I would be eternally grateful, since I could then get all the kit info I need from the sites out there, like Old Rocket Plans and JimZ.

Thanks for the help guys.

[Rocket Doctor]

Wow ! A lot of help here. OK, so now I have tube lengths for everything, and I have a fin pattern for the FatBoy. I just need the fin patterns for the Avenger and the Goblin.

Solomoriah, I am running Windows XP home. If you have a fix for this, I would be eternally grateful, since I could then get all the kit info I need from the sites out there, like Old Rocket Plans and JimZ.

Thanks for the help guys.

Estes customer service may be able to help out call Christine at 1-800-525-7561 X216

[Solomoriah]

Solomoriah, I am running Windows XP home. If you have a fix for this, I would be eternally grateful, since I could then get all the kit info I need from the sites out there, like Old Rocket Plans and JimZ.
I think the primary problem is that most fin patterns available online seem to be TIFF images (*.tif). I don't understand it at all, frankly, but I've seen the choice defended many times (and I don't understand the arguments used to defend the decision either). PNG would be much better, mainly because both IE and Firefox can reliably view PNG without needing a plugin. TIFF images require a plugin, and I have yet to see a plugin that I like for this purpose.

I'm guessing you don't have a TIFF-specific plugin, and Quicktime is taking up the slack. Printing via Quicktime is problematic.

AlternaTIFF is the best of the TIFF plugins I've seen: www.alternatiff.com

I don't like it, but it does an okay job.

...

Okay, so I sat here for a few moments trying to figure out how to explain the process, and I came up blank. So here's your solution:

http://rocketry.newcenturycomputers.net/temp/FinPatterns.pdf

The first two fin plans came from JimZ's site, the last from this very site.

[LeeCrenshaw]

OK, you da man ! I'll just come to you fomr now on when I need something, save me a lot of time !
I like your website too.

[Mark II]

At Ye Olde Rocket Plans, all of the plans are in Acrobat format. Either click on the image of the first page of the plan to open it in the Acrobat plug-in for your browser, or else right-click on the image and select "Save Target As..." (in Internet Explorer) or "Save Link As..." (in Firefox) to download the file to your disk and open it in your copy of Acrobat Reader.

At JimZ's website, some plans have Acrobat versions, but many do not. As Solomoriah said, each of the little images of pages on the plan's web page is an image of the page saved in TIFF format. (Some pages, like the decal images, are occasionally in JPG format, and there is often a text file containing additional information included as the last page in the set.) In Windows, double-clicking on an individual page image will cause your browser to open the image with the Quicktime plug-in. Instead of doing that, you should download each page by right clicking on it and saving it to your disk. If you have Windows XP, then you should be able to view the TIFF images with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, which should have been installed as part of the XP install.

If you have Office, then you should also have the two helper programs Microsoft Office Picture Manager and Microsoft Office Document Imaging, and either one of these will also open TIFF files. You do not need to launch an Office application to use either one; they are available globally throughout the Windows environment. Right-click on a TIFF image that you have saved, and scroll down to "Open With..." to see if either one is listed in the slide-out list. If not, and you do have Office, then scroll down to the bottom of the slide-out list and select "Choose Program" to browse through a list of your installed apps.

I have found that Microsoft Office Document Imaging to be particularly helpful with managing TIFF images of kit plans. This is because you can use the program to append additional TIFF images as pages to the image that you have open. I use this feature to collect the individual pages of the rocket plans that I have download into a single document. If you or anyone else viewing this thread wants to know how to do this, reply to this post and I will walk you through it in a subsequent post. I'll also go over how to include JPG images and text files in the TIFF document.

Once I have put all of the pages together in a TIFF document, I create a new copy of the file as an Acrobat .pdf file with a freeware program called Cute PDF Writer. I like to have all of my rocket plans in Acrobat format because it makes it easier to print them out. It is also easy to select part of a page, such as an individual part on a template page, and either print it as a separate page or copy it into a graphics editor.

Mark

[Solomoriah]

I import the images into OpenOffice.org, then create a PDF using the built-in exporter. I am NOT a fan of Microsoft, so it pleases me no end to use non-MS products. Plus, I can do it all in one program (no need to install a PDF writer, though I do have such a program installed for use with other programs).

[Mark II]

I import the images into OpenOffice.org, then create a PDF using the built-in exporter. I am NOT a fan of Microsoft, so it pleases me no end to use non-MS products. Plus, I can do it all in one program (no need to install a PDF writer, though I do have such a program installed for use with other programs).
I didn't have to find and install any of these programs; they were already present (except for Cute PDF Writer). LeeCrenshaw may already have them installed on his WinXP box, too, so he may be able to work with TIFF files without having to go through the process of finding and downloading the OpenOffice suite.

Cute PDF Writer consists of a very small printer file. To use it, all I do is select it when I hit Print. It presents me with a standard Save box, and then "prints" the document into a .pdf file. Cute PDF is from a company called Acro Software, not Microsoft, and it is free.

With Cute PDF installed as a printer, assembling the saved TIFF images into one document and then converting it into an Acrobat document is all done within one program, Microsoft Office Document Imaging, so it, too, is an "all-in-one" solution.

Mark

[tbzep]

Quicktime is similar to MS products in that it is "invasive" for lack of a better term. It wants to take over everything it can. If you don't pay attention when it is installed, it will make itself the default viewing program for just about every image and movie format around. I hate Quicktime as a primary image viewing program.

If you are running Windows XP, right click on the saved file and click "open with" choose Windows Picture and Fax viewer and click the box to always open with it. You can do something similar with Vista. You can also go into Quicktime and uncheck the boxes of file types you don't want it associated with in its prefrences and usually the Windows Picture and Fax viewier will take those back over.

Another option is Infranview. It's a free program that does more than just viewing. Gimp is another free program that can be used to manipulate images. It isn't as powerful as Photoshop, but it can do a heck of a lot for a free/open source program. The main thing is that you un-associate......disassociate.... :confused: Quicktime from the .tiff format, regardless of what viewing software you end up liking best.

BTW, I recently got Windows Vista and I think it's horrendous. It was the biggest computer purchase fiasco I've ever made. I had already been thinking about trying Linux and it pushed me over the edge. I'm now dual booting Vista with Ubuntu Linux (it's free!). After fooling with it only a couple of weeks I love it! I still have a few Windows only programs that I think I need but probably don't ;) . It makes your average computer blazing fast. There's loads of open source software available for the majority of things you need for a computer to do. Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are open source, as is Open Office that Solomoriah mentioned.

Solomoriah, the only reasons I can think of for TIFF being a preferred file format are, 1. It's a lossless format, whether compressed or not, where jpg/png are lossy. 2. It's been around since the 80's and is compatible to some extent with just about everything related to imaging. Even my new fancy dancy digital SLR shoots in RAW, a couple of JPG variations, and...yep, you guessed it...TIFF formats. :)

Edit: Sorry to repeat some of the information the other guys mentioned. I only scanned over them lightly before replying where I should have read them thoroughly the first time around. :rolleyes:

[Solomoriah]

Solomoriah, the only reasons I can think of for TIFF being a preferred file format are, 1. It's a lossless format, whether compressed or not, where jpg/png are lossy.
Um... PNG is lossless. See http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

JPEG can be lossless also, if you choose 100% quality, but usually PNG is better if lossless reproduction is the goal.

Generally, I'm able to get a PNG down to a smaller size than a TIFF without giving up any quality, though admittedly not much smaller. PNG is a web-standard format, so both IE and Firefox read it, while TIFF is an antique MS format that they never really supported properly.

2. It's been around since the 80's and is compatible to some extent with just about everything related to imaging.
PNG is compatible with most user-level software, including web browsers and word processors.

Also, it's an open standard, not one mandated by any empires, evil or otherwise.

[CPMcGraw]

I import the images into OpenOffice.org, then create a PDF using the built-in exporter. I am NOT a fan of Microsoft, so it pleases me no end to use non-MS products. Plus, I can do it all in one program (no need to install a PDF writer, though I do have such a program installed for use with other programs).

I'll second Solo's endorsement of OpenOffice to create PDFs. That's what I've used for creating the PDF plans currently on BARCLONE.

Now, if only Apogee would work on that Linux version of RockSim... :rolleyes:

[Solomoriah]

Linux RockSim... cool, but I'd still have to pay for it.

Yesterday as I was driving home from work, I found myself thinking about how hard it would be to replicate the functionality of RockSim. After giving the project some serious thought, I backed down from it... mostly, I must admit, due to my lack of experience writing 3D rendering applications. I'm more confident in my ability to improve my currently sketchy understanding of Barrowman's equations, and I'm sure I could design a user interface as good as RockSim, if not better... but it does begin to look involved, and I'm not sure I have the spare time to work on it.

Still, it is a cool idea.

[Rocketking]

Check out this previous thread regarding the 'Goblin' fin dimensions...

http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/showthread.php?t=2326&page=2&pp=10&highlight=Goblin

Just an FYI!

[Mark II]

Quicktime is similar to MS products in that it is "invasive" for lack of a better term. It wants to take over everything it can. If you don't pay attention when it is installed, it will make itself the default viewing program for just about every image and movie format around. I hate Quicktime as a primary image viewing program.
The only situation in which I have seen Quicktime act as the default viewer is when I am trying to view TIFF files in the browser (IE or Firefox; I use the latter). It never asserts itself as the default viewer anywhere else, and I have never had to change any settings to accomplish that.

If you are running Windows XP, right click on the saved file and click "open with" choose Windows Picture and Fax viewer and click the box to always open with it. You can do something similar with Vista. You can also go into Quicktime and uncheck the boxes of file types you don't want it associated with in its prefrences and usually the Windows Picture and Fax viewier will take those back over.
I have never ever had to make any changes in order to set those as the defaults in the 6 years that I have been running XP.

Gimp is another free program that can be used to manipulate images. It isn't as powerful as Photoshop, but it can do a heck of a lot for a free/open source program.
I'm definitely with you on that one, but I don't understand why you tacked on that qualifier at the end. ;)

Solomoriah, the only reasons I can think of for TIFF being a preferred file format are, 1. It's a lossless format, whether compressed or not, where jpg/png are lossy. 2. It's been around since the 80's and is compatible to some extent with just about everything related to imaging. Even my new fancy dancy digital SLR shoots in RAW, a couple of JPG variations, and...yep, you guessed it...TIFF formats. :)
I don't think that anyone here is trying to argue on behalf of TIFF; it just happens to be the format that most of the plans are saved in at JimZ's site, and so we have to find ways to deal with it. Personally, I'm not interested in doing a lot of graphics wrangling with these files; all I ever want to do is to just get them saved and printed without too much hassle so that I can get on with using them to help me build rockets. Extended debates over which formats are best and which is the most whiz-bang graphics app on the planet are really kind of beside the point. The last time I logged on, I didn't see anything about YORF becoming a website authoring forum.

Mark

[barone]

FWIW...the prefered format for fin scans here is jpg :D

http://www.oldrocketplans.com/sendscans.htm

[CPMcGraw]

...Gimp is another free program that can be used to manipulate images. It isn't as powerful as Photoshop, but it can do a heck of a lot for a free/open source program.

...I'm definitely with you on that one, but I don't understand why you tacked on that qualifier at the end...



I have GIMP, Photoshop Elements 5, and Draw 12 to work with. Photoshop is by far the easiest of the three to work with. The GIMP is nice for the price and beats having nothing at all, or nothing more than MS Paint. It is quite powerful, but has a stiff learning curve to go with that power. It's not as intuitive with the controls as Photoshop. Draw is by far the most difficult of the three; but it is also the only one of the three to work with VECTOR graphics, which Carl's Krellvenator works with. That makes it a necessary evil for project development these days...

[CPMcGraw]

Linux RockSim... cool, but I'd still have to pay for it.

Yesterday as I was driving home from work, I found myself thinking about how hard it would be to replicate the functionality of RockSim. After giving the project some serious thought, I backed down from it... mostly, I must admit, due to my lack of experience writing 3D rendering applications. I'm more confident in my ability to improve my currently sketchy understanding of Barrowman's equations, and I'm sure I could design a user interface as good as RockSim, if not better... but it does begin to look involved, and I'm not sure I have the spare time to work on it.

Still, it is a cool idea.

The same thought has crossed my mind. For 3D rendering, a starting point might be Blender. This is an open source animation rendering program similar to Maya. As with other sophisticated projects, the learning curve is stiff, and the interface is not as intuitive as it could be (especially for neophytes like me).

For programming a new interface, you might consider the wxWidgets or Qt libraries. wxWidgets is open source; I'm not sure about Qt (I don't think it is).

Amazing, isn't it, where a simple request for fin patterns can lead? :D

[tbzep]

Um... PNG is lossless. See http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

I was thinking png was lossy. I reckon that's what I get for thinking. :rolleyes:

PNG is a web-standard format, so both IE and Firefox read it, while TIFF is an antique MS format that they never really supported properly.

PNG is compatible with most user-level software, including web browsers and word processors.

Also, it's an open standard, not one mandated by any empires, evil or otherwise.

No arguments there, or over any of this for that matter. I was just noting why TIFF is used so much. It's not so much which software reads it as much as which software produces it, from 80's flatbed scanner software to modern high end digital SLR's. Most modern user end software to view or manipulate images handles much more than jpg, png and tiff. They often handle much more obscure formats as well.

We know MS is an evil empire....what about Adobe? :p They own the rights to TIFF, IIRC.

[tbzep]

The only situation in which I have seen Quicktime act as the default viewer is when I am trying to view TIFF files in the browser (IE or Firefox; I use the latter). It never asserts itself as the default viewer anywhere else, and I have never had to change any settings to accomplish that.


I have never ever had to make any changes in order to set those as the defaults in the 6 years that I have been running XP.

It doesn't do it continually, but if you were to uninstall it and install it fresh, it will grab associations left and right. I unchecked at least a dozen associations when I installed it on this Vista/Ubuntu machine a couple weeks ago.


I'm definitely with you on that one, but I don't understand why you tacked on that qualifier at the end. ;)

I've never really fooled with PhotoShop, so I was just going by what I've read. I like Gimp, but like CPMcGraw said, it's not real intuitive. Since I don't use it often, I tend to forget what I've learned from session to session.


I don't think that anyone here is trying to argue on behalf of TIFF; it just happens to be the format that most of the plans are saved in at JimZ's site, and so we have to find ways to deal with it. Personally, I'm not interested in doing a lot of graphics wrangling with these files; all I ever want to do is to just get them saved and printed without too much hassle so that I can get on with using them to help me build rockets. Extended debates over which formats are best and which is the most whiz-bang graphics app on the planet are really kind of beside the point. The last time I logged on, I didn't see anything about YORF becoming a website authoring forum.

Mark

You're right. I'm not arguing at all. I'm just speculating on why TIFF is still so popular. I really couldn't care less what format is used as long as it is compatible, keeps good image quality, and I don't have to pay for another piece of software to look at it or manipulate it. :)

[tbzep]

Linux RockSim... cool, but I'd still have to pay for it.

Yesterday as I was driving home from work, I found myself thinking about how hard it would be to replicate the functionality of RockSim. After giving the project some serious thought, I backed down from it... mostly, I must admit, due to my lack of experience writing 3D rendering applications. I'm more confident in my ability to improve my currently sketchy understanding of Barrowman's equations, and I'm sure I could design a user interface as good as RockSim, if not better... but it does begin to look involved, and I'm not sure I have the spare time to work on it.

Still, it is a cool idea.

Go for it! Call it Solomoriah Sim for Linux (SSL) ;)

I'd love to be an Alpha/Beta tester. :D

[Solomoriah]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I honestly don't think I can accomplish it. Oh, given adequate time, certainly, but that's not how my life is arranged now.

[Mark II]

I have GIMP, Photoshop Elements 5, and Draw 12 to work with. Photoshop is by far the easiest of the three to work with. The GIMP is nice for the price and beats having nothing at all, or nothing more than MS Paint.
I use it for this very reason. I had been hearing about it for years, but never hsd a reason to DL it. That changed when my Mac died and I no longer had GraphicConverter to work with. I wasn't able to afford to fix the Mac (still can't), and so I had to go to my backup computer. With a greatly reduced budget for tech goodies, I was happy to have The GIMP available.

It is quite powerful, but has a stiff learning curve to go with that power. It's not as intuitive with the controls as Photoshop.
I use maybe 2% of the feature set, just the bits that enable me to accomplish what I want to do. I had Photoshop Elements on my Mac, but that's unavailable now. I know how to use GIMP to do the simple things that I want to do, and absolutely nothing else. There is online documentation for it, but I have rarely accessed it.

Draw is by far the most difficult of the three; but it is also the only one of the three to work with VECTOR graphics, which Carl's Krellvenator works with. That makes it a necessary evil for project development these days...
Draw is not an option for me right now - see above. I'd really like to be able to work with vector graphics, too; I'm still looking for something that I can afford...

Mark

[Solomoriah]

There are a LOT of tutorials for the Gimp available online. I myself use perhaps 20% of its power, but with what I know I can generally achieve my goals. I've used the Gimp to prepare graphics for professional printing (the lack of CMYK support is less serious than some seem to think it is, especially as I'm generally working in grayscale) and to prepare graphics for web display (for which the Gimp is almost perfect). My wife uses the Gimp to prepare scrapbook pages, with multiple pictures on one sheet, which she prints on her color laser printer.

[Mark II]

... I am NOT a fan of Microsoft, so it pleases me no end to use non-MS products.
Hey, don't get me wrong - I'm certainly no Microsoft shill or apologist either. I jumped into this thread because I thought I could help the original poster to access the non-PDF plans by using apps (other than the QT plug-in) that he probably already had on his WinXP machine. That's why I described a process that used MS products. I'm not in a position right now to buy one of those comprehensive graphics suites, which is why I use those same MS utilities, too. They are not elegant and are completely devoid of any advanced features, but they work for me right now.

Mark

[Solomoriah]

Sorry, didn't mean to come off argumentative.

[CPMcGraw]

There are a LOT of tutorials for the Gimp available online. I myself use perhaps 20% of its power, but with what I know I can generally achieve my goals. I've used the Gimp to prepare graphics for professional printing (the lack of CMYK support is less serious than some seem to think it is, especially as I'm generally working in grayscale) and to prepare graphics for web display (for which the Gimp is almost perfect). My wife uses the Gimp to prepare scrapbook pages, with multiple pictures on one sheet, which she prints on her color laser printer.

Solo,

This information might actually make a good sticky thread. Could you post some links to the tutorials you've found to be better than the average? I'd use GIMP more if I had some really decent information on using its features. I like having books available (Don't ask how many bookshelves I've filled with computer tomes in the 30+ years I've been tinkering with them...:eek: ), but as we both have found, the GIMP just doesn't have that many available anymore. :(

[Solomoriah]

Sorry, I don't keep track of them. I Google for whatever I'm trying to accomplish, and after absorbing the knowledge and practicing the technique, I forget where I learned it.

[rocketguy101]

I just found this link (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers&tid=c3ccc0b5-4d66-4291-a28a-4b39e1557202&mid=aee0fbd3-1a68-47bb-894b-b49bbd435a36&cat=en_US_5583cdf4-1d04-4052-a360-36cc12318511&lang=en&cr=US&p=2) to fix the tif association w/ IE7 in WinXP. I followed the "Fix File Associations" link, downloaded the tif reg file, and ran it. Now tif files on JimZ open in IE.

BTW the suggestion to insert the multiple pages into a single tif then print w/ Cute PDF was excellent. I used it at work today -- our CAD drawings are saved in tif format so non-CAD users can view them. Now I can send a single file to somebody rather than zipping etc.