Celestia Forums

Hi all,

after working very hard on our galaxy project during quite a number of months,
Toti and myself are now ready to release a new

Celestia-1.4.0pre-FT1

version for you to test! In case you did not realize immediately:
FT = Fridger & Toti (in alphabetical order).

Actually the code changes are quite vast, yet the code structure is very much
in line with the general constructs originally introduced by Chris.

This test version includes my new "king-size" galaxy catalog (deepsky.dsc)) with
all 10610 galaxies from Steinicke's revised NGC/IC catalog (2005)).
It's just much more fun than the "castrated" catalog. Since the rendering
speed is now really impressive, I thought people might enjoy the bigger one
for testing at least...

Each entry now has a note on the distance method used! The accuracies on
distances are much improved. Notably for the brighter ~ 1000 galaxies almost
all distances are now well determined unlike the last CVS version with
900+ entries.

Here are some nice galaxy configurations for you to try out and compare with
the DSS photographs (you can click them with Mouse-R via Info-URL as usual).
There are also beautiful galaxy images in Google/images. Just enter the Messier
or NGC/IC designation into Google's image search engine. I have virtually
compared /hundreds/ of galaxies with our new rendering.

Beautiful examples:
-------------------
M 31 (Andromeda, + M110 + M32)
M 51 (Whirlpool, amazing just rendered automatically!)
M 74
M 65 (three edge-on galaxies including M 66)
M 91 (and neighborhood)
NGC 67A (lots of galaxies))
NGC 7320 (famous Stephan's Quintet, yes, all 5 are there and just perfect)
NGC 1510
NGC 70 (a whole cluster of dim galaxies, compare with photo!)
NGC 5278 (colliding with NGC 5279!)
Leo I ( a very close-by (local) reddish E3 elliptical galaxy,
look at it after hitting G and CTRL+mouse-left adjustment, rotate it!)

Don't forget to zoom, since some galaxies are pretty small to start!
Don't miss to travel to M 87 (elliptical) and see how it brightens. See it
glowing from close by...

Here are the URL's for downloading:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SOURCES:
======
http://www.shatters.net/~t00fri/celestia/celestia-1.4.0pre-FT1.tar.gz

WINDOWS (celestia.exe + deepsky.dsc + galaxy templates )
====================================

http://www.shatters.net/~t00fri/celestia/celestia-win32-1.4.0pre-FT1.zip


NOTE1: All the 7 Hubble-type template files

S0.pts, Sa.pts, Sb.pts, Sc.pts, SBa.pts, SBb.pts, SBc.pts,

have to be in the models directory! If you forget it you will see
nothing!

NOTE2: Unfortunately, the toggling of the galaxy labels is not yet functional

Added later:
------------
NOTE3: Add-ons ( nebulae etc) in the 'extras' directory are not yet functional!

NOTE4: Most Windows users observe a crash when pushing CTRL-V and Earth, Mars,..being in sight.
This is a residual bug from CVS code, on which our release relies. It has been documented earlier:
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7857

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The new code was /explicitly/ checked to compile with Linux-Kde, Linux-gtk,
Linux-gnome and Windows Vc++.net! The OS-X community must possibly adapt also one statement
in their GUI code. It's the analog of the winmain.cpp statements for the popup:

into:

Let us know anything you feel could be improved or should be fixed. The plan is
to have this version submitted to CVS after a (short) period of testing. Of
course we hope to get further constructive feedback from Chris.

Enjoy

The authors


Find below the Changelog (written in non-technical terms). We hope it
may give you a condensed idea about the main changes in this version:


Changelog (relative to latest CVS)
======================
Fridger Schrempp & Toti

* Extensively updated precision catalog of 10610 galaxies with distance
information from four catalogs ( 6 methods ), 4 alternate names, info-URLs,
and correct orientations in space. Well commented Perl script as
documentation. Used distance determination method indicated in catalog.

* Much improved galaxy templates

----------------------------------- C++ code-----------------------------

* Galaxy coloration based on hue profiles from true color photographic imaging.
Elliptical galaxies have redder coloration (since they are older than spirals)

* Realistic relative apparent brightness display scheme for galaxies

* Apparent magnitude display as function of distance on canvas

* Extensive octree rebuilding. Culling of deep sky objects is logarithmic now,
enabling support for very large catalogs with little performance expenses.

* Optimized tuning of octree parameters practically recovers the "pre-galactic"
performance despite a complete (revised) NGC/IC database of 10610 galaxies

* Added support for multiple names of deep sky objects, implemented non linear
keyboard selection of names with corresponding tab completion, etc. like with
the rest of the celestial bodies.

* Replaced deep sky catalog class (basically a std::vector) with a more complex
database, following the original star database layout. This allows for more
sophisticated and fast treatment of massive catalogs.

* Enabled very fast search of close-to-viewer deep sky objects.

* Sophisticated brightness corrections involving the angle between 1-2 surface
normals and the viewing angle, such that the brightness distribution
gets ~ uniform for all galaxy orientations and Hubble types. This also
avoids excessive, unnatural brightness effects in edge-on views.

* Galaxies get brighter with decreasing observer distance according to realistic
eye sensitivity profile

* Brightness display coupled with Automag scheme

* Enabled very fast picking of deep sky objects.

* Placed galaxy templates in 'models' directory

* Many crucial fixes in galaxy.cpp

-- factor 2 was missing in the 'size' definition via the radius such that
distances among DSO's were grossly incorrect
-- fixed correct ordering of (non-commuting) operations in matrix m.
This gave incorrect galaxy orientations
-- To save space and to improve display: generate neat spherical E0 template
from S0 disk template via rescaling by (1.0f, 3.8f, 1.0f)
-- fixed wrong x,y alignment of elliptical rescaling!

Hi,

some further more technical remarks for those of you who will attempt to compile the sources themselves.

I have included both the KDevelop project files (Linux-KDE) and the Vc++.net (2003) project files along with the libs, includes and dll's for Windows . So if you have the VC++.net environment installed, you should be just able to import the project files and compile the code by hitting the respective keys (SHIFT+CTRL+B) and run it with (CTRL+F5).

Analogously with KDevelop. But you must have all required libraries and headers (devel-packages) installed as usual.

Good luck!

Bye Fridger

Arrrghh... Dirk?... Hank?... Steven?... is there anybody?

Fridger and Toti: thanks a lot for sharing your great work, and deciding to do so before hearing from Chris (I assume)! I hope he will be pleased with the progress too. The galaxies look awesome!

Good Doctor and Toti...

Just FYI, I installed the test version on my poor, pitiful pc and was
immediately delighted with fantastic displays of the SMC, the LMC, the
Milky Way, and a number of galactic views. Was extremely beautiful, and -
as far as *I* can tell - accurate.

For your further information, I did experience some problems after running
the test version, but nothing that couldn't probably be repaired with a
better pc.

If I have the Galaxy rendering enabled, my Firefox browser simply would
NOT connect to the web, even if I shut Celestia down and ended the
program completely. If I disable galaxy rendering, then I can still click on
an "Info" button from within the test version, and be taken to the site of
interest. With galaxy rendering enabled, however, the browser simply
stops responding. I even ended the test version while Galaxy rendering
was enabled, and could still not get my browser to execute correctly
- even though the test program had ended. I had to re-boot my pc in
order to get my browser working again.

All in all though, the spectacular galactic views are worth any quibbling
doubts about my brower's performance. They are simply awesome.

Again, this is probably because I'm still using my old pc - A Gateway
Intel Celeron 1400 MHz unit with only 256 MB of RAM, and NO special
graphics adapter beyond the Intel 82815 graphics chipset inherent in
the computer.

Just thought I'd let you know what it did on my PC.

Great stuff, and THANKS VERY MUCH FOR tHE EFFORT HERE...

AAAAaarrrgh ! Dirkpitt, where are you ?

I unzip and installed in a separate folder from Celestia and the following message appeared "Error reading configuration file".
I didn??t understand if it is a complete test version of Celestia(don??t require the original) or is just a plugin/add-on

Fridger and Toti, (alphabetical order)

Incredible... and very much appreciated.

- Hank

Awesome! Much thanks!

Now for your first critic.

I did notice that the galaxy disappears once you go in them, but other than that, wow!

Of course, I only looked at it for a few seconds before i shut celestia down to correct a problem with a fictional galaxy i made for myself, but now that i've posted, I'm gonna explore a bit!

Again, much thanks!

Hi Fridger & Toti (in alphabetical order)!
Thanks a lot for your good work!
I had only tested M 31, wandering around it! Awesome!
But there is a small problem...
I have a ATI 9600 graphic card in my PC (with the newest drivers prom ATI) : with Celestia 1.4.0 pre6, pressing Ctrl-V I cycled throu
- Basic
- Multitexture
- OpenGL vertex program
- OpenGL 2.0 (but in this case our earth becomes full of strange colors and saturn has no texture )

Now with your version FT, the "OpenGL vertex program" option disappeared at all.
Can you help me?

Thanks and ciao
Pierluigi

This version seems to disable "Nebula" rendering. I'm unable to see Nebula or Selden's big Galaxy objects add ons.

Will these add ons need to be recoded to work in the new version?

------------------

Also when attempting to change the video rendering mode using ctrl-v this version of Celestia crashes for me.

Same here.

danielj wrote:I unzip and installed in a separate folder from Celestia and the following message appeared "Error reading configuration file".
I didn??t understand if it is a complete test version of Celestia(don??t require the original) or is just a plugin/add-on

Daniel,

SPECIALLY for you I had added in the win32 archive a file called

README.1st

which means "Read me FIRST". Apparently, you did not do it, since the answer to your question is written there in a few lines.

Bye Fridger

Hi all,

good to see that we are at least "off the ground"...


Most of your reports we have to get at later (tonight), when there is a FT1 version in front of me (or Toti). His time is MEST-5, so he is still sleeping (I guess).

-- browser did'nt connect when galaxy rendering enabled (Bob)
-- the OpenGL 2.0 rendering path vanishing?? (Pierluigi)
(it works perfectly for me, I always use it, I checked all rendering paths before the release)

-- Nebula rendering disbled (Kolano, PlutonianEmpire)

@PlutonianEmpire:
As to the "disappearing of the galaxies" if one enters them,...well, that's so far a "feature" reflecting our ignorance and the fact the the density (number per unit screen area) of luminous sprites gets very low upon entering the galaxy. Perhaps I find a more pleasing "extrapolation" graphically. Clearly all these galaxy renderings are meant to be looked at from a certain distance, yet the spherical or spheroidal (E-types) look very nice on very close distance ...


OK, all your points are taken...

Bye Fridger

Thanks for this great improvment, indeed, it's superb.

Just a note: (but maybe it's my poor computer/card) seems to me that 2D galaxies (bilboards) installed don't work, now...

Jeam, love colours and 3D effects

Sorry.It was because the file is in .1st,and I thought the format wasn??t compatible.Now everything is fine.It is running fast,but it appears that all the nebula disappeared...
In M 51,where is your companion?
Anyway,it is a very nice work.

t00fri wrote:

danielj wrote:I unzip and installed in a separate folder from Celestia and the following message appeared "Error reading configuration file".
I didn??t understand if it is a complete test version of Celestia(don??t require the original) or is just a plugin/add-on

Daniel,

SPECIALLY for you I had added in the win32 archive a file called

README.1st

which means "Read me FIRST". Apparently, you did not do it, since the answer to your question is written there in a few lines.

Bye Fridger

danielj wrote:Sorry.It was because the file is in .1st,and I thought the format wasn??t compatible.Now everything is fine.It is running fast,but it appears that all the nebula disappeared...
In M 51,where is your companion?
Anyway,it is a very nice work.

What? How did they disappear? Did the galaxy names on top left of the screen etc also disappear? . Are you 100% sure you copied ALL 7 galaxy templates into the models directory of your active Celestia 1.4.0pre6??

Anyway: Noone else of the people who wrote so far had this strange effect that you describe, e.g. that the "head" galaxy ngc 5195 of the Whirlpool is missing while M51 is shown?? Also, it works perfectly in my system both for Windows and for Linux. And it works well for Toti. Things almost never tend to work in your case (at first). What a world full of injustice ...

I hope you did not copy the models dir from our win32 release as a whole into the models dir of your active Celestia??? Only the /files/ ending with .pts, please.

There might still be a small bug as I noticed: if one clicks in a particular way, then the galaxy and the screen text output just vanish (deselection) and only come back if one types the nebula name again.

I look into that issue once more tonight.

Bye Fridger

Hi guys,

first of all thanks for the compliments, and glad you liked the results.

--Kolano, PlutonianEmpire:
Nebula rendering disabled

-- PlutonianEmpire:
As to the "disappearing of the galaxies" if one enters them,...well, that's so far a "feature" reflecting our ignorance and the fact the the density (number per unit screen area) of luminous sprites gets very low upon entering the galaxy. Perhaps I find a more pleasing "extrapolation" graphically. Clearly all these galaxy renderings are meant to be looked at from a certain distance, yet the spherical or spheroidal (E-types) look very nice on very close distance ...

-- Jeam Tag:
Just a note: (but maybe it's my poor computer/card) seems to me that 2D galaxies (bilboards) installed don't work, now...

Loading of deep sky objects from extra folders has been disabled due to internal changes in the way celestia now handles these bodies. This is why (probably) you can't see nebulae, billboards, etc. Will be restored in a later release.
As for the galaxies disappearing, to add to what Fridger said, this is also a way to speed up rendering of galaxies in older hardware (we eliminate blobs close to the viewer thus alleviating the GPU workload).

Bye

Unfortunately, disabling the viewing of galaxies from inside means that the Milky Way can no longer be seen on the screen from a viewpoint in the Solar System. It'd be really nice if this feature could be re-enabled.

selden wrote:Unfortunately, disabling the viewing of galaxies from inside means that the Milky Way can no longer be seen on the screen from a viewpoint in the Solar System. It'd be really nice if this feature could be re-enabled.

Selden,

I guess you misunderstood. Surely the Milky Way is visible from Earth and other locations within our galaxy. Just type 'Milky <Tab>' into the command line.

Depending, however, on the galaxy topography, the appearances of galaxies differs if viewed from inside. In case of (barred) spirals like our own galaxy, the density of luminous bubbles in the visible arms is still pretty high if viewed from a peripheral position ~ within the galactic plane, and distance from center < R_galaxy.

In case of rather spherical E0 -E3 galaxies, the density of luminous bubbles is distributed about stochastically equal inside. Hence if the FOV decreases in close approach, the luminous matter becomes "rare". One still sees something but it's not bright anymore.


Bye Fridger