New Star Map (21 nearer stars from Sol)

[Cham]

I'm working on a new addon to help visualize the vicinity of our solar system : a 3D map of the closest stars from Sol. The first part of the blue lines are in the equatorial plane (I'll add a complete polar grid later). Here's a preview (the label color is temporary). Of course, the model is fully 3 dimensional and it's fun to move around :



The end result should look like this :

[Cham]

Here's the equatorial grid added. I just need to finish the toggle CELX script and to adjust the colors...

The polar grid has a radius of 10 LY, and the 21 closest stars are labeled (distance < 12 LY).



From now on, I'll publish my addons only if there are some interested people. I'm tired to talk to a wall on this forum.

[Cham]

The addon is already finished

[Reiko]

Cool!!! I always wanted something like this for celestia!

[Hungry4info]

Definitely! Being able to rotate the thing around and see the graphic is something one can't do with images of the same thing.

[Fenerit]

Publish, publish...

[Cham]

It's now on my addons topic :

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15543

Please, test and report.

[duds26]

Fantastic addon, really like the grid.
One question though, could you give the lines that connect the place where the stars are with the center of the grid in another color.
It would be handy to see this.

[duds26]

Can you also make one with the solar system instead?

[Chuft-Captain]

FIRST TEST.

Unable to select some stars (looks like about 1/2 of them) with the mouse.

eg. Can't select:

Barnards Star
Gliese 15
Gliese 725
Lalande 21185
CN Leo
Ross 128

Can select:

Rigel Cen
Procyon
eps Eri
Sirius
Procyon
Gliese 820
Gliese 71

[Cham]

After playing with the addon for some moments, I think I'll turn it into a "multi-layer" (instead of a simple "layer"), by adding more stars up to 15 LY (instead of 12 LY). The ~41 stars in the range 12 LY < distance < 15 LY are getting in the way though, so I'll use a stronger transparency for their lines and labels, and the toggle script will use three states (Off, ON 1 for distance < 12 LY, and ON 2 for distance < 15 LY).

So expect an update later today or tomorrow.

EDIT : Chuft-Captain, your problem has nothing to do with the addon itself. It's just a matter of distance and size of the star... However, having clickable labels would be a great feature in Celestia.

[Reiko]

Works great! I love it.

[Cham]

I published a second version, with more stars (up to 15 LY). I also added a symbol to indicate the binary systems (circle with a dot inside). The addon is now a 3 states multi-layer. As usual, use the same script several times to toggle the layers one by one. How is it working on your system ?

And what do you think about the circle symbol ? I was also thinking about using a large dot for the binaries, and a smaller dot for the single stars, but I'm not sure.

Preview :

[Fenerit]

...and what about to colorize the "balls" accordingly with the star class? Anyhow FYI it work fine on my system; I recognize the behaviour found by Chuft but must be due to the faintest of stars.

[Cham]

...and what about to colorize the "balls" accordingly with the star class? Anyhow FYI it work fine on my system; I recognize the behaviour found by Chuft but must be due to the faintest of stars.

I had this idea when I designed the addon. The problem is that many balls are actually showing multiple stars systems (binaries and some more complex systems). Since the stars in the system are having various sizes and spectral classes, how can I define the ball's size/color ? Also, several colors may give a strange "Christmas tree" feel to the whole.

So the labels can't have a variable size/color in a consistent way. I think that a "keep it simple" philosophy is better here : same size and color for all the labels, except a special symbol (circle) for the multi-component systems.

[fsgregs]

Really nice addon. Thanks for the work and effort. Its a great educational tool. My only problem is ... I can't seem to figure out how to turn on the polar grid and blue lines to each star. I've toggled the celx file and tried a bunch of keys, but the lines do not appear. HELP!

Frank

[Cham]

Okay, I modified a bit the last addon for some better rendering on screen, to identify the number of stars in the multiple systems, and to add a special red symbol in the cases of exoplanets (three of the nearest stars do have exoplanets!).

EDIT : I've updated the star map addon on my addons topic.

I've found an elegant solution : the stars with exoplanets are indicated by a subtle blue circle, which gives a nice continuity to the blue lines, and is consistent with the circle as a symbol of "orbiting objects" (also consistent with multiple stars systems). And it will be very easy to edit the CELX file as we discover more exoplanets around these stars in the future.

What do you think ?

[fsgregs]

Cham:

Sorry for the repeat, but I can't seem to figure out how to turn on the polar grid and blue lines to each star. I've toggled the celx file and tried a bunch of keys, but the lines do not appear. HELP!

Also, some of the stars in your screenshot are not labeled when I run the addon on my machine. For example, Sirius is not labeled in my view, even though I've brought it close to the forward view. Am I doing something wrong?

Frank

[Cham]

Frank,

obviously, the addon hasn't been installed correctly. I don't know what you have done wrong. It should be easy. Just check that you have all the pieces in the right folder.

Have you edited some of the files ? If so, don't forget to open/save under the UTF-8 format.

[fsgregs]

Cham:

OK, I discovered that the polar grid and all blue lines are in the class, "nebula". If nebula is not pre-selected by Celestia's start.cel, then you do not see the lines or grid when you launch the celx addon script, until you open the render menu and turn "nebula" on.

I suggest you add a "render nebula" command to the nearest_stars.celx script so the lines are turned on automatically.

This would be a great addon for inclusion in Vincent's lua edu tools addons, if a keystroke could be mapped to the keyboard to toggle through the 3 script choices. Have you given thought to toggling the script via keystroke?

Frank