Modified Version of Celestia for a Museum exhibit

[matt]

Hello Celestia developers. I emailed Chris this via the email-address listed on this site, but he hasn't gotten back to me and I don't know how often he checks that email, so I thought I would create a forum posting for this.

I work for a company that produces video and interactive media for museums. I discovered Celestia a few weeks ago while researching media for a series of museum exhibits for an Air and Space museum that we are currently in the design stages of. Celestia is a great educational tool! I was very impressed by the depth of it. Some of its capabilities are very close to what we are wanting to create for one of these exhibits.

In this exhibit, we want the user to be able to select one of six spacecraft (Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, Galileo, and Cassini) and shuttle that spacecraft back and forth along a timeline, pausing at various significant milestones along that timeline to learn about the discoveries made there. We are wanting the timeline to include two views of the spacecraft, one that gives a third person perspective directly behind the spacecraft to show us its point of view, and another overhead map type view that shows its orbital trajectory through the solar and/or planetary systems.

In the short run, I would like to talk with someone familiar with the Celestia code about the feasability of making these changes. In the long run, we would like to discuss contracting them to make the changes for the exhibit.

Thanks,

Matt

[selden]

Matt,

I'd suggest that you contact Dr. Adam Nieman of NESTA Futurelab in the UK.
He was responsible for a Kiosk version of Celestia that is used in the foyer of Wildscreen, a Science Centre in Bristol, UK, for something similar to what you describe.

For contact info, see http://www.adamnieman.co.uk/about.html

[cpotting]

In the short run, I would like to talk with someone familiar with the Celestia code about the feasability of making these changes. In the long run, we would like to discuss contracting them to make the changes for the exhibit.

Unless there are other factors that you have not included in your requirements, it does not sound as if you need "changes" to Celestia or someone "familiar with the Celestia code". Just a script and the means for the user to interact with it (keystrokes seem quite feasible, unless you were not thinking of using a keyboard).

At any rate, I for one would be interested. There are others on this forum who have done marvelous jobs creating tours and specialised routines for Celestia to execute - but that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind giving it a go.

[matt]

Thanks Selden for the reference. I sent Adam an E-mail

CPotting:
I don't know if what we want to do could be done with scripts or not. I downloaded some scripts for examples, and they seemed a little cumbersome for what we were envisioning. We are trying to get away from the keyboard and make this a really clean, simple, kid friendly exhibit. We are invisioning the interface for this exhibit being a simple button and a throttle control. When you select a spacecraft from a menu, you are given a 3rd person perspective view behind the craft on its journey, and a top down view of the solar system that shows the orbits of the planets, and the orbit of the selected spacecraft (up to the current point in time, not the whole journey.)
Using the throttle control, you can accelerate at different speeds back and forth along the spacecrafts timeline. As you reach different points along the spacecraft's timeline, the view automaticaly shifts smoothly from one focus to another. For example, Voyager 2's perspective first focuses on Jupiter, as it passes Jupiter, its focus moves to the various moons that it photographed in the order of its tour, then as Jupiter shrinks in the distance, its focus moves to Saturn, after Saturn, Uranus etc. At certain segments on the timeline, a particular planet, moon, asteroid, or other object would become higlighted. Clicking the button while the object is highlighted, would bring the user to an information page describing the discoveries that the craft made at that object, and containing actual pictures taken by the craft, another click would allow you to return on your journey.

Any ideas?

[cpotting]

With that additional information I would say your best bet is Selden's contact.

Not that it couldn't be done - I'm sure the throttle could be easily worked out. The highlighting is beyond the abilities of scripts without modification of the Celestia code though. The rest (two synchronised views, shifting from one subject to another, moving along a timeline) would not be a problem for a script.

Still. If someone out there has already worked on a kiosk implementation of Celestia, then you can probably eliminating the re-invention of the wheel by contacting them.

Best of luck in your endeavours - and post some screenshots when you have a working prototype!!

[buggs_moran]

With your description in mind I would think that it would probably be easiest to create a movie (easy to do, but I think you'd need to play with time lapsing a bit) of your trip in question in Celestia, port it to flash (or some other authoring software) and create an interactive page around it. That way you could shuttle back and forth in the trip and if Voyager were near, say Io, you could have it timed to show a link to photos and info from the spacecraft and maybe a nifty looping orbit of Io from Celestia in another window.

[hank]

I don't know if what we want to do could be done with scripts or not. I downloaded some scripts for examples, and they seemed a little cumbersome for what we were envisioning. We are trying to get away from the keyboard and make this a really clean, simple, kid friendly exhibit. We are invisioning the interface for this exhibit being a simple button and a throttle control. When you select a spacecraft from a menu, you are given a 3rd person perspective view behind the craft on its journey, and a top down view of the solar system that shows the orbits of the planets, and the orbit of the selected spacecraft (up to the current point in time, not the whole journey.)
Using the throttle control, you can accelerate at different speeds back and forth along the spacecrafts timeline. As you reach different points along the spacecraft's timeline, the view automaticaly shifts smoothly from one focus to another. For example, Voyager 2's perspective first focuses on Jupiter, as it passes Jupiter, its focus moves to the various moons that it photographed in the order of its tour, then as Jupiter shrinks in the distance, its focus moves to Saturn, after Saturn, Uranus etc. At certain segments on the timeline, a particular planet, moon, asteroid, or other object would become higlighted. Clicking the button while the object is highlighted, would bring the user to an information page describing the discoveries that the craft made at that object, and containing actual pictures taken by the craft, another click would allow you to return on your journey.

Any ideas?

It doesn't sound like this would be too difficult to do with Celestia, using CELX scripting and some code modifications. Apart from using the button for selecting which spacecraft to track and for bringing up the info page for the highlighted object, the user input requirement is mainly for flexible time rate control to allow the user to scan through the mission timeline. Celestia can do that. Celestia can also implement the sort of flexible automatic view control you'll need. Some code changes would be required: to allow script input from the throttle device, enable orbit display on a per view basis, etc. But it sounds very doable to me.

- Hank

[matt]

Thanks for everyone's input on this project. It sounds like everything we'd like to do with Celestia is doable. I am now in touch with both Adam Nieman and Chris Laurel on this. When and if this gets to a production stage, I will definitely post screenshots to this forum.

Thanks,

-Matt