Celestia Forums

1.2.5pre7 is ready. I had intended to have 1.2.5 final ready this weekend, but I've been having some trouble with the Linux autoconf stuff.

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/files/celestia-win32-1.2.5pre7.exe

This is a complete installation of Celestia, not just the EXE. There have been quite a few changes to solarsys.ssc and a new file was added.

If you download this release, the first thing you should do is recreate the Galileo-Amalthea encounter at 6:19UT on 5 Nov 2002. The prerelease has a complete trajectory for the Galileo mission, so you can go back to the launch date and follow the spacecraft on it's course from Earth to Jupiter, through 35 orbits, and to it's final plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere in September 2003.

http://ennui.shatters.net/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=celestia&id=amalthea

--Chris

you forgot to rename the Galaxies.dat to Galaxies_and_Clusters.dat

more detailed info in the bugs forum

I was also hopeing to see those new Icons, that Don made

Darkmiss wrote:you forgot to rename the Galaxies.dat to Galaxies_and_Clusters.dat

more detailed info in the bugs forum

I was also hopeing to see those new Icons, that Don made

I'll fix the .cfg problem. And the icons will be there too--I need to fix this Linux build stuff first, though.

--Chris

Hmmm. Celestia shows the closest approach to somewhat closer than NASA's published prediction of 160km. Tch. Those NASA folks have gotta get their calculators fixed before they collide with something!.

And what does turning off the cameras have to do with gravity measurements? (See the press release at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/release/press021029.html) I thought they used doppler shifts in the transmission signal to deduce the accelerations. My understanding was that charged particles in the radiation belts would be zapping the CCDs, so they'd only be seeing noise, anyhow.

Aha: maye it's related to the power requirements. See http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/thiswk/today021104.html They're shifting more power to the fundamental carrier frequency to improve the received signal-to-noise ratio at the Madrid groundstation.

This second article includes more timing details that can be checked in Celestia:

1) flyby of Io at 7:41pm PST (GMT-8) at 45,250km.
2) enter Jupiter's shadow at 11:14
3) leave view of Earth at 11:25 pst
4) peri-Jove at ~00:08 at ~71,500km above cloudtops
5) leave Jupiter's shadow at ~00:13 pst
6) visible from Earth at ~00:23 pst
7) cross Io's orbit outbound at 4:15am pst

According to the note at the bottom of the article, all of the above times are ERT (Earth Received Time), 44 minutes after SCET (SpaceCraft Event Time). So I think Celestia should show them to be happening at

1) 18:57 = 02:57 GMT
2) 22:30 = 06:30
3) 22:41 = 06:41
4) 23:24 = 07:24
5) 23:29 = 07:29
6) 23:39 = 07:39
7) 03:21 = 11:21 GMT

I did all the arithmetic in my head so I probably dropped a decimal point somewhere...

Good luck chris ...
I know the autoconf system can sometimes be a pain into the ass

Chris, could you post your solarsys.ssc file for download...I ended up overwriting the new with the old lol

I dont notice any major problems cept models are different? Were there any changes to the 3ds classes?

Another great job chris...wish me luck on Planet Builder 1.0...something I have in the wings to create for Celestia that will give the user a more visual aspect to ssc files...Heres the first installment: http://www.celestiaproject.net/~rassilon/atmosphere.zip

What it currently does is allow you to enter Celestia rgb values while giving a graphical visualization of what the atmosphere would look like with those values...just remember to hit the enter button to process the values...on the right side the program outputs the text you can copy and paste into an ssc file...

I think I will be making one that helps with making accurate orbital values for the planets and eventually have the ability to output one complete ssc file...The planets wont be the only thing...I plan on making a global cluster generator and asteroid planetary ring generator as well...

More to come on that...

Just a quick off-topic update: Galileo went into safe mode while passing Amalthea so they didn't manage to do the gravity/mass measurement.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2002/release_2002_205.cfm

Rassilon wrote:Chris, could you post your solarsys.ssc file for download...I ended up overwriting the new with the old lol

http://www.shatters.net/~claurel/solarsys.ssc

Rassilon wrote:I dont notice any major problems cept models are different? Were there any changes to the 3ds classes?

--Chris

I suppose by you quoting me on the last bit means yes? If so whats new?

Rassilon wrote:I suppose by you quoting me on the last bit means yes? If so whats new?

Ooops . . . I meant no, there have not been any changes. What differences are you seeing?



--Chris

probably nothing really the models just seemed to load slower was all...no biggie...I assumed by that slower loading that something may have been added...but I am also going by a 3ds thats ~5 megs in size

PLEASE, I downloaded the latest pre-release and it runs VERY slowly! Choppy! The planets have lines on the "equator".
I have "integrated graphics", I know not the best, but 1.2.4 ran very well and many of the add-ons worked very well. I really like this program but, if the newer versions won't run, I cannot use it.
Help????

Michael,

Have you tried downloading the most recent graphics drivers from your PC vendor's support site?

Also, please post the details about your OpenGL configuration. It's available in Celestia's Help menu. The popup information window is designed so you can use cut-and-paste to enter the information into your posting, too: you don't have to retype it.

Thank you!! I installed the latest drivers and things seem to be working well. My openGL info:
Vendor: Intel

Renderer: Intel Solano

Version: 1.1.2 - Build 4.13.01.3196

Max simultaneous textures: 2

Max texture size: 1024



Supported Extensions:

GL_ARB_multitexture

GL_ARB_texture_env_add

GL_ARB_transpose_matrix

GL_EXT_abgr

GL_EXT_bgra

GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint

GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array

GL_EXT_cull_vertex

GL_EXT_fog_coord

GL_EXT_packed_pixels

GL_EXT_packed_pixels_12

GL_EXT_paletted_texture

GL_EXT_rescale_normal

GL_EXT_secondary_color

GL_EXT_separate_specular_color

GL_EXT_stencil_wrap

GL_EXT_texture_env_add

GL_EXT_texture_env_combine

GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic

GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat

GL_WIN_swap_hint

This does not mean much to me! It mentions texture size of 1024, but I have used larger textures with good results. How about specular maps? Can I use them?

Would it be possible for me to change/install a new graphics card myself?
I LOVE this program and have been reading another post about graphics cards.
Thank You!

Michael,

OpenGL 1.1.2 doesn't have as many features as the newest standard, 1.4, but I don't know exactly what the differences are. The version of the OpenGL support is determined by the graphics drivers supplied by the vendor.

In principle, installing a graphics card is certainly possible. The details of what kind you can use depends on your system. Hopefully they includes a user's manual, probably on CD. Briefly, you have to find out how to disable the onboard graphics and whether or not your system includes an AGP slot. Without that, you'd have to get a PCI grahics card. Then the feature set of the new card would be determined by how much you can afford...

Thank you Selden, very helpful. I will find out about the graphics card and continue to follow the advances of Celestia.

Chris, is it possible to show the "Celestia" logo for a longer time?
This due to the fact that, when starting, the system needs some second to open the screen, and many times the logo has just disappeared.

Second, have I missed something, or the possibility to choose as "Standard" a resolution different from "Windows mode" is not yet applied? This is another time wasting problem, because everytime I start the program I have to reset this parameter.

Third, I noted that if during a .cel show I change something (e.g. distance, or orbits ON, or text from absent to verbose, and so on), the next time that I will start the same .cel show it will start with the last configuration I applied DURING the show.
Could it be possible to connect the .cel file to an .ini file, that takes memory of the solutions choosen for the show, so that even if I change something during the show itself, next time it will start with the same configuration written in .ini?
Sorry for this long e-mail, and thank you for your answer.

Andrea

I was wondering if chris could put the tarballs of the latest pre-release as a download... I only saw the win version.

Hell, if the problem is with compilation, then the odds that someone finds a fix might be slightly increased :)

Also, a pet peeve of mine is that I need to be root to install addons to celestia. wouldn't it be possible for celestia to read from $HOME/.celestia/* and load whatever data there is ?

(If this is already the case, sorry)