RCAIDE GUI: Research Community Aircraft Interdisciplinary Design Environment — Graphical User Interface

The RCAIDE GUI is an interactive desktop application for RCAIDE, a powerful open-source Python platform for aircraft design and analysis. It provides an intuitive visual workflow for aerospace engineers, researchers, and students to design, configure, and simulate aircraft without writing Python scripts directly.

Features

• Vehicle Setup — Build up aircraft geometry using a component tree (wings, fuselages, nacelles, landing gear, booms, propulsors) with a live 3D preview
• Geometry Visualization — Full 3D VTK rendering environment; inspect component placement and export top/front/side view images
• Configurations Setup — Define base, takeoff, cruise, and landing configurations with control surface deflections and active propulsor settings
• Analyses Setup — Configure multidisciplinary solvers (aerodynamics, atmosphere, weights, acoustics) and toggle fidelity levels
• Mission Setup — Chain flight segments (takeoff, climb, cruise, descent) with custom altitudes, speeds, and linked analyses
• Mission Simulation — Execute the backend RCAIDE solvers and view numerical and graphical results (performance, payload-range, stability)

Installation

pip install RCAIDE-GUI

Installing RCAIDE-GUI automatically installs RCAIDE-LEADS and all required dependencies.

Launch

rcaide-gui

Or via Python:

python -m main

Requirements

• Python ≥ 3.9
• PyQt6
• pyvista / pyvistaqt
• RCAIDE-LEADS (installed automatically)

Refer to the installation guide for platform-specific notes.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our contribution guidelines.

Contact

For feedback, issues, or feature requests, use our GitHub Issues or join our Discussions.