Celestia Forums

Hey, don't hit me too hard. It's my first texture based on reality, which means that I still have a whole lot to learn before I can use effectively the tools at my disposal, which aren't many. I wish I had a software capable of transforming the orthographic projection we get in photos into the plate-carr?©e projection Celestia uses. But I don't. I don't even know if such programs exist outside specialized (and therefore ultimately expensive) software. It's interesting to note, though, how common it is to find programs that wrap things around spheres and so uncommon to find those that can "unrwap" them.

Anyway, enough ranting. Even bad and low-definition as it is, I find this texture useful. I based it on a series of highly pixelated Hubble photos that show about 300?? of the rotation of the planet and on the photo at http://www.astronomy.com/asy/objects/im ... es_800.jpg for the slight red tinge.

Here's the pic. Use it if you don't have enything better or trash it if you do.

Jorge,

such software exists of course. I have been widely using very good free source code under Linux. There is also a free Windows program pointed at by Selden. Just look up my Titan and Iapetus threads. You'll find everything there. That's why we have a search engine here. .

But you will have to learn a lot before getting really good results...

Sorry I am in a hurry (this week)...

Bye Fridger

t00fri wrote:such software exists of course. I have been widely using very good free source code under Linux. There is also a free Windows program pointed at by Selden. Just look up my Titan and Iapetus threads. You'll find everything there. That's why we have a search engine here. .

Yeah, well... I've had a few painful experiences with that search engine of yours, with lots of time lost and no replies found (although these searches usually yeld interesting information in the margins of what I'm looking for, so not everything is lost). Without knowing exacly how you guys call things it's a bit hard to narrow searches, and the forum is too large to have productive wide searches.

So, I ask. Now I know that the thing I'm looking for is buried somewhere in your Titan and Iapetus threads, which is a progress...

t00fri wrote:But you will have to learn a lot before getting really good results...

Yeah, I know. And not only with those programs but also with the intricacies of photoshop-like software. I've done quite a few images already, but using vectorial drawing and my dear old (but increasingly inadecuate) Paint Shop Pro 4.

Anyway, my techique is simple: try and error. That thing up there was my first try, and there are lots and lots of errors in it. So I'm on the good track.

The free Windows program that I found that can translate telescopic pictures of planets into Plate Carr?©e is Iris at http://astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm
by Christian Buil (http://astrosurf.com/buil/).