Additional universe information patch completed

[Rei]

Ok, Fridger, please answer these for me...

1) In a post about how Celestia's performance is slow on some systems like my home system, is it:

A) Inaccurate to say that it is slow on some systems
B) Accurate to say that it is slow on some systems

Take my home computer as an example.

2) If it is slow on some computers, would it be reasonable for person using such a system to request the ability to control polygon counts?

A) No.
B) Yes.

3) (Applicable only if you use a system whose configuration is managed by a sysadmin): If something runs slow on your home computer where you would be using it, and you test it out on another computer that's managed by a professional, to see if there still are speed problems, do you:

A) Assume that your second test was on a machine that was misconfigured by the said professional, and cease to care about the performance on your home computer
B) Assume that there's a speed problem on some systems, still care about the performance on your home computer, and check to see whether other people are experiencing the problem while suggesting a feature to reduce the polygon count for people with systems that are merely 2 years old - which *WOULD* be useful.

Just like in your private emails, Fridger, I don't understand why you've been tirelessly treating me like I'm an idiot - questioning my ability to program when I do so professionally and you don't, questioning my ability to do almost anything. It gets tiring, very fast. Is that how you treat everyone that you just meet that you disagree with? Do you see me relentlessly questioning your understanding of physics and treating YOU like an idiot, about that which you do for a living, just because we disagree on what things users would like to see?

And if you do want to question my knowledge of graphics instead of these crude insinuations when I've done far more on the subject than you'll probably ever do, then just ask, ok??? I'll field any questions you can throw out there.

(sorry if I seem a bit upset here, but this has been really grating on me, and I've been trying to keep the topic on a productive angle, trying to get answers on why you'd want to remove a popular feature and things like that, and you keep turning it back towards me. Of course, for someone whose first post wasn't about content but about gender, I guess I shouldn't be surprised...)

[Paolo]

The key to extending it to a landscape mode is tesselating the grid more when it's closer to you; thus, the big adaptation would be to make it use not a single grid, but a series of grids of different resolutions, the more distant ones lower res and the closer ones higher res..

I know this system to be a Level Of Detail mangement. The infinite universe program has routines to split single triangles instead of the grids. So only the necessary polygons are tassellated taking care of the observer position.

I'm not sure what sort of advanced z-buffering techniques you could do in OpenGL, since OpenGL generally does z-buffering internally. However, there are things that the programmer can do; I already had it do a degree of backface culling, which could be augmented by culling of faces that are obscurred. Given the performance of it on that ancient laptop, however, I don't think there will be too much of a problem. If there is, I could switch from reliance on polygon resolution for all details to texture and bump map resolution to some extent. Also, while there are many other things that Celestia does, the planet itself can at least be disabled when you switch to terrain.

Perhaps I'm wrong but if I remember well I've red somewhere about fly simulators. To render the landscapes their engines usually disable the common z-buffering systems like the OpenGL one. Octrees are used to determine z-sorting and culling of triangle faces.
The usage of triangle tassellation and octrees need very efficent algorithms so often are coded directly in assembly language.

Bye - Paolo

In Italy is late night... so Goodnight.

[Rei]

.

[Rei]

I know this system to be a Level Of Detail mangement.

Exactly. I've used something similar in another project before, and would expect it to work well enough in this case to extend the terrain to a landscape without too much of an increase in polygon count.

Turning off Z-buffering is an option, although I'd hate to have to merge a Z-buffered and non Z-buffered environment in the event that an object would be supposed to obscure some element of the landscape, such as a low-flying satellite, or if people decided to add cities/volcanism/geysers/etc into the mix. I'd prefer avoiding it unless performance issues drove it to that. Proper culling of obscured polygons should get 80% of the way there, so I still think that galaxies would remain the big CPU eaters on systems that aren't top-of-the-line. If there were performance issues, there's lots of papers on landscape optimization that I could go into, and I'd definitely consider removing Z-buffering.

Thanks for the ideas.

G'nite, Paolo!

[t00fri]

Just like in your private emails, Fridger, I don't understand why you've been tirelessly treating me like I'm an idiot - questioning my ability to program when I do so professionally and you don't, questioning my ability to do almost anything.

I have never ever dreamed of doing this. Instead I have repeatedly pointed out that I was impressed about your initiative. But --independently of your actual competence-- if I had to hire you into a team, I would be hesitant...No matter what that team was supposed to be concerned with.

Incidentally, I told you that I am not being paid for writing software, but for sure I was programming already extremely complicated scientific tasks when you were not yet born. Just to get things straight...
But this is really off topic now..

Bye Fridger

[Rassilon]

The main purpose of Celestia has always been a group effort...I personally dont see a problem with any of the additions purposed here as long as there is the option to disable it...This allows those who do not care for the addon not to see it or use it....

I think if someone were to add to this program they must first keep in mind what the spirit of it is intended and what the purpose is before they contribute...Its not to keep it an elite members only orginization...but to keep Celestia as what its been since the beginning...A tool of enlightenment...

[bh]

I agree with Rass... (welcome back! We need you!).

[jamarsa]

I think everybody is welcome to modify the code in whatever way they want. You can agree or disagree with it, but that's the option allowed by the actual license.

A completely different issue is the addition to be valued by the maintainers and incorporated into the main branch; this is a problem of personal policy and tastes.

That's the case with most of the add-ons, like database managers, fictional textures, gravity and so on. They can be incorporated into the code for whoever wants it, as long as it complies with the license requirements. But they must be permitted to exist; pretending other would be to cut the flow of new ideas (bad ones and good ones).

I personally want to welcome the work of karen, interesting or not. If you maintainers like some of her work, you could add it and credit her for that. If you don't like most of it, you are free to ignore it, but don't blame her.

And now my opinion about karen proposals:

-I prefer to maintain the UI information concise and small, and add extra info externally with a browser. That's because Celestia is mainly a visual system, aimed at a reallistic view of the space. But I agree that having a permanent connection to Internet (that's my case) helps a lot in that. I would have preferred to have extra info integrated into Celestia in case of having a slow, non-permanent access. So I can put myself in the place of poor kids wanting to know more of space, but unable to get it because their parents cannot afford a good Internet connection. So it's a good *optional* issue.

-The terrain engine is a excellent idea; I was thinking of talking my sister (another graphics expert) about it, but you came first. I think, however, that you'll have to comply with the terms of accuracy and speed before we find it valuable.

[t00fri]

I think everybody is welcome to modify the code in whatever way they want. You can agree or disagree with it, but that's the option allowed by the actual license.

A completely different issue is the addition to be valued by the maintainers and incorporated into the main branch; this is a problem of personal policy and tastes.

That's the case with most of the add-ons, like database managers, fictional textures, gravity and so on. They can be incorporated into the main code for whoever wants it, as long as it complies with the license requirements. But they must be permitted to exist; pretending other would be to cut the flow of new ideas (bad ones and good ones).

I personally want to welcome the work of karen, interesting or not. If you maintainers like some of her work, you could add it and credit her for that. If you don't like most of it, you are free to ignore it, but don't blame her.

Jamarsa:

clearly, the essence of the discussion is about the question of incorporating Karen's present code and future ideas into the main branch of Celestia. Some of these changes eventually would modify the internal structure of the code massively. It's not just a matter of pushing a button or two...

like

-- gravity simulation
-- fractal terrain generation (Sun raise on Olympus Mons...)
-- tables with hardcoded data like gas compositions

Most importantly, these modifications would change the "face", the reputation and the "soul" of Celestia significantly.

Before the contents of this discussion get lost entirely, I thought I just collect some of the "core sentences" according to my point of view from the many previous posts again into a compact listing:

i) Celestia already makes available a wealth of most reliable data about
any kind of objects upon a simple click on the object! It uses the
WEB-browser as the /appropriate/ interface. Most help facilities of
software applications nowadays use WEB-browsers, too. This 'info
philosophy' also is beautifully in line with Celestia's unique
cel://url feature!

ii) Rei, everyone would be very happy if you were ready to invest your
time to work towards improvements of radius definitions for
nonspherical bodies, eliminate further bugs in parameter values
etc. Just to make Celestia more reliable..

iii) But, please......., approach the problem more gently, take your time,
think about how your modifications would fit into the general design
goals of Celestia etc.

iv) In no way will Celestia be transformed "within a few weeks" into a
spaceship simulator with which you can land on Olympus Mons to watch
the sunset ....That's what is in your mind if I am correct?

v) I am not doubting anything, Karen. I just try (in vain?) to moderate
you to get down to a "reasonable pace", to make you start thinking
about how to fit your interesting ideas into the existing framework
without radically changing it. That you try to think about the
excellent teamwork we are having here so far and what you could
contribute without sabotaging this spirit...

vi) Please, I accept that you tell me you like to be as verbose or terse
or whatever you want;-) But don't use 2 or 6 or 9 events to "prove"
anything statistically to me!


Bye Fridger

[selden]

I just thought I'd mention my use of the visual data: I usually don't even notice whether or not it's in verbose mode.

I include the visual data in my screenshots only so people will know I used Celestia to create the pictures. All of the images could have been created almost as easily in other ways -- with a paint program, for example. Any other conclusion drawn from the presence of the visual data is mistaken.

The information I personally use from the "heads-up display" is almost entirely Celestia-specific: which object is selected, what framerate Celestia is producing, things like that. The only times I pay any attention to the object information are when I'm trying to figure out what's wrong; with things like the distances to stars in distant clusters, for example.

Some kind of poll may be more appropriate than trying to guess from screenshots what kinds of visual data are useful.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

v) I am not doubting anything, Karen. I just try (in vain?) to moderate
you to get down to a "reasonable pace", to make you start thinking
about how to fit your interesting ideas into the existing framework
without radically changing it. That you try to think about the
excellent teamwork we are having here so far and what you could
contribute without sabotaging this spirit...

I have to admit, reading this argument it does seem to me that you're being incredibly patronising, Fridger. All this talk of 'sabotaging the spirit of Celestia' is counter-productive and doesn't encourage anyone to help with the project at all. It sounds like Rei has some very good ideas and is more than capable of implementing them on whatever timescale she's comfortable with, so just let her do that already. Just because you don't like the way she might implement something doesn't mean that everyone will dislike it. And as others have pointed out, she's probably quite capable of understanding how the license works and how to interact with other developers. So give her a break, eh?

Besides, an injection of new ideas and new approaches is often good for projects - railing against such things is not helpful. I for one like the idea of more information being presented in the interface. Heck, I've not seen anyone complaining about marc's SQL database information appearing on the screen, and that's how that works... And FWIW, I think a web interface help system is a horribly clunky fudge. I agree with Rei on that one, I fire up Celestia to play around in Celestia, not to go web browsing.

[Rei]

Look. I've contributed to open source projects in the past, and never experienced anything like this. I don't need this hostility in my life as my reward for fixing your bugs and for adding new information. Even in your last post of a semi-"apology', you had to take the time to put in that thing about programming complex software before I was born. I really can't believe it.

Keep your listing of the radius of moons like Amalthea as "124 km", and all of your other similar mismeasurements (at least, mismeasurements according to NASA's fact page - whatever source you got that from, despite my trying to get you to discuss things constructively, you'd never say). Keep your frequently used minormoons addon using a completely different radius scale (average instead of maximum) for irregular objects than the off-radii in solarsys.ssc - which, might I add, used a different method because noone took the time to document that the radius was supposed to be the maximum; the file remains that way because noone *still* has taken the time to document it and noone was trying to standardize it but me. Keep your reporting of the temperature of Venus as 231K - cold enough to freeze saltwater. Keep your reporting of star temperatures based on a lookup table, but don't have star lifetimes or masses by the same method. Keep your dull monotone planet surfaces when you use go to surface. Keep your randomly picked extrasolar planet radii instead of a method which tries to compute them as accurately as possible given what's known (for example, the 920Mj, semimajor axis of 2.11, 74 Uma b with a radius of 90000, and the 2300Mj, semimajor axis of 0.29 HD 168443 b with a radius of 70000). Complain to yourself about the difficulties with modelling gravity on Jupiter because it's oblate (instead of offering advice), when it's drawn by Celestia itself as a sphere because noone took the time to add in support for oblate spheroids apart from loading a custom mesh. Keep all of the things that I fixed or was in the process of fixing for you, in exchange for your condecension. How dare you criticize me for accuracy! If these things are bugs, and you're so good at programming, *fix them yourself*. It's a shame that it took someone who apparently is so much more inept than you to bring them to the limelight, let alone fix them for you.

Keep everything the way you like it. I'm out of here. As I stated, I don't need this in my life, Fridger. You could have simply stated that you didn't want gravity modelling in the main branch, and constructively tried to work out your issues with the info patch, and I would have been happy. Instead, you kept reverting to personal attacks. Goodbye.

- Karen

P.S. - Welcome back to having only one woman on the board. I wonder why?

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Well. That's just bloody great. Nice one, Fridger - you just drove off someone who could have been a real boon to Celestia. Well done.

[HankR]

Uh-oh. Here we go again...

Karen,

Fridger is entitled to express his opinion. You are entitled to ignore him.

I really think he intends to be friendly and helpful. But for some reason, to many people (myself included), he often seems arrogant and insulting. I don' t think he means it. That's just the way he comes across. Maybe it's a cultural thing.

Please try to give him the benefit of the doubt. If something he says sounds hostile, just assume you've misunderstood him. Don't even respond to it. After a while, you'll get used to it. (At least, this works for me.)

Besides, in any case it's just his opinion. He's not in charge here. Who cares what he thinks?

I'm sure that most of the Celestia community welcomes your participation. Please stay with us.

- Hank

[jamarsa]

Karen, please stay for a while and continue with your ideas. Take your time with them, and polish your work.

Make a really good one, so it will be unrejectable.


Don't be upset when your first works are not well accepted. That's usual. Continue your work, and improve it. New ideas are often difficult to accept by people who have been working for years in something and have a established view. Do you remember Galileo? and Einstein?

So what if someone thinks it's a bad idea? You can always publish it as an add-on...

I'll always welcome your work.


PS: I agree with Fridger, however, that it's better to get used to the underlying philosophy of the code before changing it. That's not mandatory; but it's wise and a good practice if you want your work to be better accepted. Start with small changes, and make the bigger ones when you know more of the structure. I'm not saying that you're not expert programmer. I say that there are several design policies for the same task, and it's better to comply with the existing one.

[mrzee]

Hmmmm,

Was sick with the flu for the last three days and came back to this thread!
Reality check please!!!
Both of you have valid points and differing views.

Feel free to state your opinions but remember not to force your opinion onto others and sometimes it may get taken personal.


Personally I think the extra information is a great idea. Not everyone has the internet at home, me for example. Laptops get taken out into the feild where there is no internet conection available, astronomy outings for example. I can't see how this would be a major change to Celestia, it's like using a 16K map instead of an 8K one. If you don't want the updated info then simply don't load it.

Seems to me that it isn't easy to interface to celestia. I could be wrong here as I haven't looked at the source but if it was easy to interface into it then this whole issue of what should/shouldn't be added to the main program would be made redundant. It would be a case of interfacing into it with an external addon. Yes I am aware of the problems this can introduce but if losing talented individuals due to differing opinions is the alternative, I know which I would choose.

Karen, giving up on something because of conflicting interests or opinions won't do anyone any good. Don't give up because someone has upset you, take it in your stride and continue on. I honestly don't believe frigger was intentionaly degrading you or your abilities. You can take it that way, thats totaly up to you but thats not what his intent was.

No one is doubting either of your abilities or expertise so maybe both of you should agree to disagree and get get on with it.

[LadyHawke]

Look. I've contributed to open source projects in the past, and never experienced anything like this. I don't need this hostility in my life as my reward for fixing your bugs and for adding new information.

It's a shame that it took someone who apparently is so much more inept than you to bring them to the limelight, let alone fix them for you.

Rei,
I've been observing, as i usually am....may i just say a few things here...you are new to Celestia, yes? Then maybe you dont understand that Celestia has a certain spirit....it lives, it breathes, and it has different meanings to everyone....i think its great that you have such wonderful ideas and the ambition to follow thru on them...but to come in here and pick apart everything you see as wrong, and (in my opinion) come across as possibly the only one who could fix them, is going to grate on a few people who have made this their pastime...or more like their personal escape....do u see what i'm saying? From what i have seen here, it has always been a team effort, everyone adding their input on something, yet not disturbing the spirit.....Dont leave...just take one thing at a time and work on it...

Everyone has their opinions, I just wanted to speak up with mine...I'm not a programmer, a graphics designer, or a physicist....I was brought here to enjoy the beauty and peace that Celestia has to offer by someone who helps create the serenity here.....now...back to my observing....

[Christophe]

Karen, the problem Fridger has has nothing to do with you personnaly or with your programming skills. I think from what you've shown us everyone is convinced that you're a talented coder and that you could provide very valuable contributions to Celestia.

The problem is that it looks like you're taking over the project, starting implementing features that may not be in line with the current project goals.

The way we usualy work is that proposed features are first discussed on the developpers list so that everyone as a chance to give his/her opinion, offer implementation advice, propose modifications and so on. Most often we come to a concensus, if not the final say is with Chris who initiated the project and is still the project leader.

Except if you want to get the Celestia community's opinion to support your new feature beforehand, the forum is not the best place to propose a patch.

Of course if your patch is refused in the process and you still think it is worth working on, you're free to offer it to Mostly Harmless or to start your own fork.

I hope this thread will not deter you from taking part in the development of Celestia or of one of its offspring.

[Guest]

Maybe it's a cultural thing.

[perhaps-relevant interjection]
The cultural thing is a huge problem in this sort of international "cooperative" venture, particularly because we're communicating by text. At least when I'm physically in the USA, I'm constantly aware that I'm surrounded by a very different culture from my own, and I (and the people I talk to) can also pick up on various cues from facial expression and body language. But as I sit at my computer screen, my tendency is to flip the textual content of someone's posting into the cultural reference I'm used to.
I see this causing just endless, wearying strife on fora like these, to the extent that I've left several because the pointless fighting and factionalization got in the way of the business and entertainment.
Cartoon generalization time: To Europeans, Americans can come across as pushy, offensive and impatient. To Americans, Europeans can appear stand-offish, aloof and patronizing. Once one of us picks up the wrong cue from the other, things can escalate out of control - in response to (perceived) pushiness, the European becomes truely stand-offish. In response to a (perceived) patronizing tone, the American becomes truly aggressive.
[/perhaps-relevant interjection]

Grant

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I've been observing, as i usually am....may i just say a few things here...you are new to Celestia, yes? Then maybe you dont understand that Celestia has a certain spirit....it lives, it breathes, and it has different meanings to everyone....i think its great that you have such wonderful ideas and the ambition to follow thru on them...but to come in here and pick apart everything you see as wrong, and (in my opinion) come across as possibly the only one who could fix them, is going to grate on a few people who have made this their pastime...or more like their personal escape....do u see what i'm saying? From what i have seen here, it has always been a team effort, everyone adding their input on something, yet not disturbing the spirit.....Dont leave...just take one thing at a time and work on it...

Er, at no point did Rei imply that she was the only one who could 'fix Celestia' or impose her ideas on everyone regardless of what anyone thinks, or anything like that. She always offered her changes as a conditional patch, if you actually read what she said. But Fridger started off by making a big hullaballoo about how she was female and posting a photo of her here, which was just bloody ridiculous and totally immature. I think I'd be very pissed off if someone did that to me when I first joined a forum - like marc said, it was like a woman walking through a construction site. And then he started getting all snooty, aloof, over-bearing, and patronising, and couldn't take the hint that he was pissing her off, and it went downhill from there. I don't think it was 'cultural differences' at all - it was just plain rude, period.

And honestly, I must say that I'm amazed at the hippy-dippy BS that's being spouted by some people here - this is a programming project, isn't it? It's not a religion. I can understand people really getting into it and investing lots of their time into it, but it really is a totally unhelpful attitude to take. It all sounds so ridiculously 'cliquey' - there seems to be this undercurrent of 'oh, you clearly don't understand how it all works, and don't follow the spirit of Celestia, so you can't be part of our select group', or just plain 'you're clearly not good enough for our little project'. You're never going to get new people in on the project with those attitudes.

I think the hostile and condescending attitudes displayed here have been incredibly counterproductive, and I'm so annoyed about it because as a result of this we may have lost someone who could have added a great deal to the project.