Devlog 5 - Zenith, Azimuth, and Flight Rendering!

Overview

This development cycle focused on major new steps to improve the dashboard. The biggest addition was a complete 3D flight reconstruction pipeline capable of calculating rocket orientation from telemetry data and rendering the flight path frame-by-frame.

What’s New

Implemented zenith and azimuth telemetry support to determine rocket orientation throughout flight.
Added a 3D rendering engine capable of visualizing rocket orientation and position over time.
Created frame-by-frame flight playback controls directly within the dashboard.
Added automatic rendering of flight paths using telemetry stored in the FlightScope database.
Combined flight frame renders into video playback, adding an additional layer of visualization to flight analysis.
Optimized rendering performance through image caching and improved frame loading behavior.

Challenges

This chunk of progress was heavy on debugging.

The first challenge was reconstructing a realistic rocket orientation from flight data. Position alone wasn’t satisfying in replay, so I implemented zenith and azimuth calculations that adds rotational orientation to the flight replay

The biggest issue I had, however, was actually combining flight frames into a video and implementing it on the dashboard. Video formats didn’t treat me well, but I figured out the correct pipeline with lots of trial and error and checks of every step of the system.

Next Steps

Continue improving rendering performance for larger flights.
Expand the visualization system with additional flight annotations and overlays.
Improve playback controls and timeline navigation.

FlightScope has evolved from plotting telemetry to actually visualizing the flight itself. Seeing a rocket fly through a reconstructed 3D trajectory using real telemetry data is a huge milestone for the project, and I’m excited to keep pushing the visualization tools further.