Celestia Forums

I just incorporated a high precision list of cities, observatories,... on Earth into the new locations feature that CVS Celestia now offers. The nominal positions have arc-second accuracy i.e. better than 30 meters!

Chris has converted a list by NASA about features/locations on many other bodies within our solar system.

Have a look how neat it looks, if the lables are superimposed on the Earth's nightlights texture:

Bye Fridger

PS: Note the "magic" triangle Dundee-Hamburg-Lyon;-)

Wow!! Soon, you will see all of us waving hands at the sky inside celestia!!
What about a GPS interface, to locate each other accurately at real time?

It looks like amazing. This feture is in my personal Feature request list. It opens the possibility of a wide range of new features. I'm glad that is going to be implemented.

Should be nice to have a dot or a circle in the location position and the label near it.

Will be possible to have different colors for the various types of locations?

Will be possibile to display anly some type of locations with a system similar to the other body labels?

Will be possibile to select a location an then go there with the goto command? If yes also a smooth landing will be implemented?

Should be nice if when the users goes on a surface location the navigation system should change from the actual total freedom one to a restricted one that simulates the ground.
This restricted navigation mode should implement a minimum of collision detection so the user could walk or travel on the surface of the body.

Moreover in this ground mode, selecting anoter surface location on the same body, the travel could take place with a curve that follows the surface profile.

Bye- Paolo

Seems Celestia will turn into a 3D Atlas of Earth... We have one of them...

My previous requests are all gadgets than could improve the beauty of the simulation.

The most important thing is that some stunning improvements could be implemented when this feature will be available.

As an example with other some few additions we will be able to simulate extremely easily the soujourner landing, and perhaps we will see pathfinder rover move on the Mars surface.
Or we will be able to simulate the future landing missions on Mars etc.

Bye - Paolo

Great! Will we be able to add in our own locations, or are they fixed?

ADD ROADS!!!!!

You can add your own in .ssc files. The syntax looks like this:



Size is the diameter of the location and is used to determine how close to the location the camera needs to be before a label should be rendered. Importance can be used to override size for small locations that you still want visible from a distance, like your lunar landing/crash sites.

--Chris

Are exponential notation numbers supported in the 'Importance' parameter? I want to express my own little ego, but it's very boring to write all these zeros.
Better to write 10^3000 ...

Will there be a "see from this location" option placing the camera at the location point ?

AstroBoy wrote:Will there be a "see from this location" option placing the camera at the location point ?

Of course! Apart from being able to search for, identify and display many outstanding features on bodies of the solar system, the idea is to be able to land (softly) at predetermined and /accurately known/ places and then pursue some astronomical observations from there (or go to the pub closest to your landing site and have a beer instead;-))

Bye Fridger

chris wrote:You can add your own in .ssc files. The syntax looks like this:

Code: Select all

Location "Seattle" "Sol/Earth"
{
    LongLat [ -122 47.5 0 ]
    Size 10
    Importance 100
}


Size is the diameter of the location and is used to determine how close to the location the camera needs to be before a label should be rendered. Importance can be used to override size for small locations that you still want visible from a distance, like your lunar landing/crash sites.

--Chris

Great! Will they have to be in the format 47.5 though or will something like 24° 32' 45'' work too...? Also, what is the third figure in the LongLat line for? Height off the surface?

t00fri wrote:or go to the pub closest to your landing site and have a beer instead

How will Celestia know if you're over 18...?

Fridger,
May be I missed something, but as far as I am able to play with celestia (cvs version) , I coud not find the list of label neither in the Linux version (Mandrake since I am french :oops: ) nor in the Windows version. I saw the new "call buttons" but nothing happens since there is no list available.
Is the label list available??
Thanks MB

MB wrote:Fridger,
May be I missed something, but as far as I am able to play with celestia (cvs version) , I coud not find the list of label neither in the Linux version (Mandrake since I am french :oops: ) nor in the Windows version. I saw the new "call buttons" but nothing happens since there is no list available.
Is the label list available??
Thanks MB

Not generally, yet. I can put it onto my shatters.net account tonight for general download...

Bye Fridger

500 precise locations on Earth:
===================

I have put my earth.ssc file to my shatters.net site for everyone to download and play with. Note you need a very recent CVS Celestia to make it work. Just place it into the extras directory.

http://www.shatters.net/~t00fri/earth.ssc.zip

You must first switch the labels on with the '&' key and also approach the earth sufficiently (on my screen ~6300 km at standard FOV) for labels to pop up.

Bye Fridger

Thanks Fridger, It works very well, City names show up at 7000 km and the observatory at closer distance (3000 Km). I assume we that is related to the distance.
Incidently I saw that such information come from XEphem that I know well. But I have problems, to re-install it wioth my last version of Mandrake :oops: I will try again but I may have some questions if you don't mind.
MB

MB wrote:Thanks Fridger, It works very well, City names show up at 7000 km and the observatory at closer distance (3000 Km). I assume we that is related to the distance.
Incidently I saw that such information come from XEphem that I know well. But I have problems, to re-install it wioth my last version of Mandrake :oops: I will try again but I may have some questions if you don't mind.
MB

Yes, I reduced the importance value for observatories and similar isolated locations in order to avoid the display to be over crowded...

Are you saying you have problems to reinstall XEphem? If so you might have your Motif libraries at an odd place for example...

Bye Fridger

Fridger
I hope to have more time during the weekend. If problems, I'll tell you, Thanks.
BTW, when will we have the opportunity to benefite from your new and beautiful textures?
Bye
MB

question: does it(this "add-on") works also in the Windows version of Celestia??

ElPelado wrote:question: does it(this "add-on") works also in the Windows version of Celestia??

Locations are not an add-on. They are incorporated into the main Celestia code. Chris provides CVS builds for Windows from time to time. If you are using a very recent one, location labels will work for you.

Bye Fridger