Celestia Forums

Here's a download link to the Lua Edu Tools v1.1:
http://gvince.perso.sfr.fr/celestia/lua ... ls_1.1.zip

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-- WHAT ARE THE LUA EDU TOOLS?
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The 'Lua Edu Tools' are an addon for Celestia 1.5 that provides :
- A Graphical Interface that simplifies access to the main commands in order to allow students and non-confirmed users to run Celestia in complete autonomy.
- New features that are not available in Celestia 1.5: compass, InfoText/Image, distance markers, etc...



The Graphical Interface includes the following components:

> Simulation Date and Time in the system locale format, Timescale slider, Time/Date setting buttons;
> Ambient Light slider;
> Magnitude slider;
> Galaxy Light Gain slider;
> Render Options setting button;
> Navigation buttons: Go to Sun; Go to Selection; Follow Selection; Sync Orbit; Track Selection;
> Solar System browser which classifies objects according to their type (planets, moons, asteroids, ...);
> FOV slider;
> Asteroid Belt rendering;
> Information Text overlay (infoText), and Image overlay with diaporama (infoImage);
> Distance markers
> Magnification option for an educational visualization of our Solar System;
> Virtual Pad for an easy control of pitch and yaw motion.
> Compass:

- Planetarium/Navigation mode buttons;
- Longitude/Latitude or Azimuth/Elevation.

The 'Custom Goto' command, accessible by [Shift]+[G], allows user to set
his/her own travelling duration (see configuration file config.lua).

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-- HOW TO INSTALL THE LUA EDU TOOLS?
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1- Unzip and paste the lua_edu_tools' folder in your 'extras' folder.
2- Paste the 'luahookinit.lua' file directly in your Celestia base folder.
3- Add the following line to your celestia.cfg file :

Important : The Lua Edu Tools require Celestia 1.5:
http://www.celestiaproject.net/celestia/download.html

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-- HOW TO USE THE LUA EDU TOOLS?
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- Once the Lua Edu Tools are installed, the Graphical Interface is automatically displayed each time you run Celestia.
- You can enable/disable the Lua Edu Tools either by clicking on the right hand side of the toolbox or by pressing [Shift]+[i].
- All the standard features of Celestia, like the keyboard controls, remain active even when the Graphical Interface is on.

Kool

Hi Vincent, its nice this enhance of Celestia, i test at windows and linux and work good, only at linux i can't desactivate asteroids, but work at gnome and gtk, at kde i don't know even i can't compile with kde.

thanks.

Vincent, thanks a lot for this wonderful addition to Celestia.
It makes presenting the Universe much easier, with the possibility to change in a second all the stuff, upon request, without disturbing with big white windows on top.
Very appreciated and helpful, IMO.
Well done.
Bye

Andrea

Thanks indeed! I'm using your tools for quite a while now.
I still think they should go into the official SVN, maybe with the LuaHook commented out in celestia.cfg

steffens

Finally at home! I've spent the last day in testing Celestia 1.5.0 and Lua Tools with my new computer and graphic card (nVidia) OpenGL 2.0 capable. Vincent, when I go in magnification mode I get the flickers on Earth and Mars, due to the atmosphere checking (when unchecked all go right) in OpenGL 2.0 only; all the other render paths works fine. The texture are that of distribution's default. Do someone has found this behavior?

Fenerit wrote:Finally at home! I've spent the last day in testing Celestia 1.5.0 and Lua Tools with my new computer and graphic card (nVidia) OpenGL 2.0 capable. Vincent, when I go in magnification mode I get the flickers on Earth and Mars, due to the atmosphere checking (when unchecked all go right) in OpenGL 2.0 only; all the other render paths works fine. The texture are that of distribution's default. Do someone has found this behavior?

Yes Fenerit, same problem for me.
Bye

Andrea

Guys, thanks for the feedback ! And sorry for the late reply. I'm just back from a great snowboard week in the Alps.

I'll have a look at the atmosphere flickering issue. This should be solved by increasing the atmosphere height proportionnaly to the magnification coefficient. I'll try to post a fix tomorrow.

Andrea, Steffens,

You can test a fix for the flickering atmosphere issue you're having in OpenGL 2.0 render path by replacing the 'lua_edu_tools/tools/magnificationBox.lua' file with this version: http://vincent.gian.club.fr/celestia/ma ... ionBox.lua

The fix simply consists in disabling atmospheres when magnification is on. Atmospheres renderflag is set back to its initial state when magnification is disabled. I'd have prefered resising the atmospheres according to the magnification coefficient rather than disabling it. However, that's currently impossible with Celestia 1.5.0 since the object:setatmopshere celx function only permits to set atmospheres colors, and not atmospheres height.

Please let me know if this fix is OK to you.

Vincent wrote:Andrea, Steffens,
You can test a fix for the flickering atmosphere issue you're having in OpenGL 2.0 render path by replacing the 'lua_edu_tools/tools/magnificationBox.lua' file with this version: http://vincent.gian.club.fr/celestia/ma ... ionBox.lua
The fix simply consists in disabling atmospheres when magnification is on. Atmospheres renderflag is set back to its initial state when magnification is disabled. I'd have prefered resising the atmospheres according to the magnification coefficient rather than disabling it. However, that's currently impossible with Celestia 1.5.0 since the object:setatmopshere celx function only permits to set atmospheres colors, and not atmospheres height.
Please let me know if this fix is OK to you.

It works perfectly for me, no more flickering on Earth and Mars, well done Vincent!
BTW, just a thought: is it possible to change the speed (sensibility?) of the "Virtual Pad"?
I set celestia.cfg as RotateAcceleration 20.0 but no effect on Virtual Pad, that IMO is a bit too much sensitive to mouse movement.
Bye

Andrea

No more flickering confirmed. Thanks, Vincent.

ANDREA wrote:It works perfectly for me, no more flickering on Earth and Mars, well done Vincent!

Fenerit wrote:No more flickering confirmed. Thanks, Vincent.

Andrea, Massimo, grazie mile. I'll release a 1.1 bugfix version soon.

ANDREA wrote:BTW, just a thought: is it possible to change the speed (sensibility?) of the "Virtual Pad"?

Of course ! Please have look at the 'config.lua' file:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Define the rotation speed of virtual pad (can take values between 1 and 10).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
virtual_pad_speed = 4

The 'config.lua' file allows you to change a lot of parameters according to your specific needs!

Found this behaviour:

Earth > "moreinfo" > Enter > Titan (or whatever else planet) > Enter;

display moreinfo of Titan (or whatever else planet) when you are yet on Earth.

Note: no need G key to be pressed.

Vincent wrote:

ANDREA wrote:It works perfectly for me, no more flickering on Earth and Mars, well done Vincent!

Fenerit wrote:No more flickering confirmed. Thanks, Vincent.

Andrea, Massimo, grazie mile. I'll release a 1.1 bugfix version soon.

ANDREA wrote:BTW, just a thought: is it possible to change the speed (sensibility?) of the "Virtual Pad"?

Of course ! Please have look at the 'config.lua' file:

-
Define the rotation speed of virtual pad (can take values between 1 and 10).
virtual_pad_speed = 4

The 'config.lua' file allows you to change a lot of parameters according to your specific needs!

Well, -100 points for me, I fear.
I forgot to check before asking for, my fault.
Thanks a lot Vincent for your patience, very appreciated.
Bye

Andrea

The proposition "No more flickering confirmed. Thanks, Vincent" by Fenerit is absent in the quotation above.

Fenerit wrote:The proposition "No more flickering confirmed. Thanks, Vincent" by Fenerit is absent in the quotation above.

Just edited, sorry, that phrase unwillingly was lost during copy-paste actions.
Bye

Andrea

Fenerit wrote:Found this behaviour:

Earth > "moreinfo" > Enter > Titan (or whatever else planet) > Enter;

display moreinfo of Titan (or whatever else planet) when you are yet on Earth.

Note: no need G key to be pressed.

Massimo,

This is actually the expected behaviour. As an example, offering more Information about distant objects can be very useful when in planetarium mode.

Vincent wrote:

Fenerit wrote:Found this behaviour:

Earth > "moreinfo" > Enter > Titan (or whatever else planet) > Enter;

display moreinfo of Titan (or whatever else planet) when you are yet on Earth.

Note: no need G key to be pressed.

Massimo,

This is actually the expected behaviour. As an example, offering more Information about distant objects can be very useful when in planetarium mode.

Ah, well.

ANDREA: nevermind the error: it seemed as myself grant myself for a Vincent's thing!

Vincent, Just my LuaTools's plays around.

In bulding some planet's data layer for the LuaTools without confuse it around within the ../image directory, if I make, to say, ../image/mars and does put here some Mars images and then in the ../infos directory I make a new infoMars.lua file in which, as explained, I write:

infoImage =
{

-- Image filenames for my Mars:

Mars1 = "../images/mars/my_Mars1.png";
Mars2 = "../images/mars/my_Mars2.png";

}

I may edit the infoBox.lua and write:

require "infoMars";

Now, if the default infoImage.lua contain the same Mars images, nothing happen when More info is checked; instead, if I do:

require "locale";
-- require "infoImage";
require "infoMars";

in the infoBox.lua, all works fine. All this could permit an open door for image add-ons, I've thought. Unfortunately, when I repeat the same operations for another planet, to say, Titan, I lost Mars. Pratically does work only the last "require" string added in the infoBox.lua or just one subfolder of the ../image directory. Hope to be clear in the procedures followed by me.

Do perhaps needs a way to return to the main dir when the user choose a planet? Does the "require"'s include "read" the last string as default dir setting?

One could to write all the dir and subdir's planet in the ../image directory as they are in the Solar System browser and when he cycle through planets, a Lua procedure could to point to the same ../image/solar_system_object_dir.

Fenerit wrote:In bulding some planet's data layer for the LuaTools without confuse it around within the ../image directory, if I make, to say, ../image/mars and does put here some Mars images and then in the ../infos directory I make a new infoMars.lua file in which, as explained, I write:

infoImage =
{

-- Image filenames for my Mars:

Mars1 = "../images/mars/my_Mars1.png";
Mars2 = "../images/mars/my_Mars2.png";

} .

Massimo,

The only file that needs to be modified to add your own infoImages is 'infoImage.lua', as explained in the Readme. You can create as many subfolders as you want as long as you specify the right pathes in 'infoImage.lua'.

Is there a specific reason for which you don't want to add your Mars images pathes in 'infoImage.lua'?

Vincent wrote:
...

Is there a specific reason for which you don't want to add your Mars images pathes in 'infoImage.lua'?

Was just a thought about further image add-ons and how to merge files as long as .ssc files are substituted by other .ssc's.