1.2.5 prerelease 6

[chris]

I still haven't found the time to get a complete 1.2.5 version ready, so here's one more prerelease. It's just an EXE update, so you'll need to first install prerelease 1.2.5.

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/files/celestia-win32-1.2.5pre6.zip

New fixes and features:

- Backspace clears selection
- ! sets Celestia's time to the current real time
- Galaxies are now pickable with the mouse
- Galaxies no longer randomly disappear when observer is outside the Milky Way
- Fixed some bugs with sampled trajectories (.xyz files)
- No eclipse or ring shadows on emissive objects
- Beginning and Ending fields in .ssc files, to assign a finite lifespan for objects (e.g. Mir, Skylab, SL-9, ...)

. . . and I probably forgot a couple things.

--Chris

[t00fri]

I still haven't found the time to get a complete 1.2.5 version ready, so here's one more prerelease. It's just an EXE update, so you'll need to first install prerelease 1.2.5.

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/files/celestia-win32-1.2.5pre6.zip

New fixes and features:

- Backspace clears selection
- ! sets Celestia's time to the current real time
- Galaxies are now pickable with the mouse
- Galaxies no longer randomly disappear when observer is outside the Milky Way
- Fixed some bugs with sampled trajectories (.xyz files)
- No eclipse or ring shadows on emissive objects
- Beginning and Ending fields in .ssc files, to assign a finite lifespan for objects (e.g. Mir, Skylab, SL-9, ...)

. . . and I probably forgot a couple things.

--Chris

Just noticed: The meaning of the new key accelerators ! and Backspace is not yet explained in controls.txt

Bye Fridger

[Darkmiss]

Well done as always

Works very well, not a single problem for me


Pentium 4, 1.5
Windows XP, Pro
Geforce 2 GTS 64
Detonator 4, 40.41


Thank you Chris.

[selden]

Well, some of the minor/esoteric bugs previously reported are still there.
Maybe if Chris could include a "list of known bugs" with the formal release, it'd keep us from bugging him about them

(e.g. in the far future, the moon's orbit goes below the earth's surface; in the far future, the earth's clouds are bands; in the current time, listing multiple objects with xyz orbits in the same ssc file causes their orbits to be drawn wrong, minor stuff like that.)

[chris]

One more thing . . . I added more accurate orbital calculations for the major planets, but they're not enabled now (except for Earth, which has been using the more accurate calculation since 1.2.4). The orbits for the major planets are pretty good right now, and the newer ones require quite a lot of extra calculation--on the order of 500 periodic terms per planet. If you do want to use the new calculations however, all that's required is modifying the CustomOrbit lines in solarsys.ssc from:

CustomOrbit "jupiter"

to:

CustomOrbit "vsop87-jupiter"

There are VSOP87 orbits for all the major planets except Pluto.

--Chris

[chris]

Well, some of the minor/esoteric bugs previously reported are still there.
Maybe if Chris could include a "list of known bugs" with the formal release, it'd keep us from bugging him about them

(e.g. in the far future, the moon's orbit goes below the earth's surface; in the far future, the earth's clouds are bands; in the current time, listing multiple objects with xyz orbits in the same ssc file causes their orbits to be drawn wrong, minor stuff like that.)

The bug list is a good idea . . .

I thought I'd fixed the problem with the Moon's orbit, but I'll revisit that. I'm not entirely sure what to do about displaying .xyz orbits, but I'll try and come up with something better for 1.2.5 final. "Something better" might just be not showing the orbits all until I have time to work out a real solution.

--Chris

[selden]

Only 500 terms?

Gee, I thought epicycles became unnecessary once you converted from earth-centered clelestial spheres to solar-centric elipses

[Niels]

Hi,
I realize I can write and make a script file and load it into Celestia and the commands are executed. Great.
But I'd like a popup window box where I can type commands and Celestia does what I ask it. Ie.:
orbit { axis [ 0 1 0 ] rate 20 duration 12 }

Maybe that is not a good Idea. I see the advantages of loading a scriptfile and not having to type.

Moving around smoothly with commands I like very musch cause it gives it that cinematic effect.

So great.

Regards
Niels
nur@softorange.com

[selden]

Chris,

Personally, I'd rather you left the drawubg of orbits enabled for xyz trajectories, minor warts and all. Making a note of the limitations would be fine.

I also consider the far-future orbital problem "minor".

The far-future lunar orbit is quite different from before: it's drawn as an elipse now rather than a collection of apparently random straight lines. It looks ok (a circle around the earth) until you scroll far enough away that the orbit is invisible and then return to a location where it can be seen. However, the lunar position itself is discontinuous and nowhere near the drawn orbit. As best I can tell, the orbits of the non-terrestrial moons don't have these problems, if that helps.


Here's a viewpoint that seems to show the problem reproducably for me.

"closemoon" {
isFolder false
parentFolder ""
base [ 0.003256562619726548 2.266844281170187e-010 -1.471854967223289e-005 ]
offset [ 1.140936303767326e-013 0 -3.789286592836838e-017 ]
axis [ 0.182734 -0.977284 0.107347 ]
angle 1.71642
time 61470462403.45438
selection "#0/Earth"
coordsys "ecliptical"
}

Note how close the moon is to the earth in this snapshot.
Unfortunately, it doesn't stay that way very long, and it's hard to reproduce. I suspect that's due to roundoff errors as time progresses.

[Aya Reiko]

Here's another shot of the close moon problem:



Here is a different angle to highlight a possible problem with eclipse rendering. Note the eclipse shadow appearing on the back of the Earth too:

[chris]

Hi,
I realize I can write and make a script file and load it into Celestia and the commands are executed. Great.
But I'd like a popup window box where I can type commands and Celestia does what I ask it. Ie.:
orbit { axis [ 0 1 0 ] rate 20 duration 12 }

Maybe that is not a good Idea. I see the advantages of loading a scriptfile and not having to type.

Moving around smoothly with commands I like very musch cause it gives it that cinematic effect.
torange.com

This would be a useful feature, and one that shouldn't be too difficult to implement. I don't think it'll make it into 1.2.5, but it will be one of the first things I add for 1.2.6.

--Chris

[Rassilon]

Did you get a chance to take out emissives casting eclipse shadows? If not no biggie...

Oh and ring shadows are still present for emissives...Atleast in mine...Dont know about everyone else...

btw I LOVE the galaxy selection....sooo much easier...Also Enter: galaxy name works as long as its case correct...

ENTER > M101 not m101...

I cant wait to add in alien stars to these galaxies hehe...

[jrobert]

Chris,

Are there vsop87's for all the moons as well? Such as for Luna, Phobos, Diemos, the moons of Jupiter etc, etc?

[billybob884]

Note how close the moon is to the earth in this snapshot.
Unfortunately, it doesn't stay that way very long, and it's hard to reproduce. I suspect that's due to roundoff errors as time progresses.

I reproduced the date to the exact second and the moon is very far away, the clouds look fine and other than the moon orbit, I notice nothing wrong.

[selden]

Mike,

What card and drivers are you using?

I'm using a GF4 Ti4200 with Detonator 40.71 drivers (under XP Pro SP1)
Differences (bugs) in the drivers/OpenGL library might explain the clouds, although they look normal when the date is set to a current time.
I noticed that Nvidia just recently released 40.72.
I wish they'd say what bugs they'd fixed. grumble.

[billybob884]

i have a gf2 which is probably the reason the clouds are normal, but the moon is still a huge distance away from the earth, and the orbit looks like one line that starts at the earth and ends at the moon. i also found that if you go into the solarsys.ssc and remove the customorbit "moon" thing the moon's orbit doesnt get messed up in the future, but that probably makes it very inaccurate.

[erostosthenes]

the cloud bug really only happens if you fast forward very fast, not when you just set the time ahead. it's weird, to be sure.

[stonedyak]

the .xyz sampled trajectories sound great!
but are there any to download, or that will de included with Celesia installation?

[chris]

the .xyz sampled trajectories sound great!
but are there any to download, or that will de included with Celesia installation?

I have trajectories for Voyager 1 and 2, Cassini, Galileo, Nozomi, and Deep Space 1 here: http://www.shatters.net/~claurel/trajectories/ However, I haven't created .ssc files to go with them, and I'm still working on some issues with the Voyager trajectories. With the latest prerelease, the new Galileo trajectory looks very good . . . You can ride along for the Nov 5 Amalthea encounter (though unfortunately, Amalthea's not in the right place . . . yet.)

--Chris

[billybob884]

I have trajectories for Voyager 1 and 2, Cassini, Galileo, Nozomi, and Deep Space 1 here: http://www.shatters.net/~claurel/trajectories/ However, I haven't created .ssc files to go with them, and I'm still working on some issues with the Voyager trajectories.

What about models for Cassini, Nozomi, or Deep Space 1?