Now that I've started testing the field of view and placement of cameras - including the primary camera, the stonkin' Nikon KeyMission 360 - I've run right smack into an unfortunate reality: My old PC is useless for editing 4K video. It literally cannot run the editing software without immediately crashing. As the primary goal of the HAPP project is to get 360-degree 4K video and give my dear readers a virtual reality ride to space, this is a pretty big problem.
In addition, I'm having difficulties manipulating the full 3D model of the HAPP in AutoCAD Fusion 360. It crashes frequently and I've lost hours of work. For that matter, the flight control simulations in MATLAB/Simulink are painfully slow.
As I have lots of work remaining in all those areas, it's time to bite the bullet. I'm retiring the PC I built nearly 7 years ago (it was a banger back then!) and building a new rig this week that can handle these tasks.
For those curious about such things, here are the parts I just ordered today:
An 8-core CPU, a screaming graphics card, 64 GB of RAM, 12 TB of storage, and lots of liquid cooling ought to hold me for a while :-)
It sucks to deviate from the parachute-testing plans I had for the coming weekend, but this is a necessary step...