Celestia Forums

One problem I've always had has been judging the size of planets and moons - there's nothing else to compare them to.
So I've built a set of map overlays that place maps of familiar terrestrial locations on top of the features of the various planets and mapped moons with radii > 100km. The current file uses either a world map or outlines of the USA, Texas or Rhode Island. (I hope to build a European and Australasian equivalent if there's interest.)
See http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/hutchison/comparisonmaps.html for more information and the download package.

Thanks as ever to Selden, for hosting the add-on.

Grant

This was a wonderful idea for an addon. And here's at least one who's interested in an Australasian alternative (request that there's at least some New Zealand in there though, I'm feeling homesick!)

PS, am I correct in thinking that the overlays you make are compatible with using VTs as the base texture not alt surface? (ie having the VT to the celestia\textures not celestia\extras directory and the overlays as the alt surface?) Or would that be opening up a godzilla-sized can of worms?

ogg wrote:PS, am I correct in thinking that the overlays you make are compatible with using VTs as the base texture not alt surface? (ie having the VT to the celestia\textures not celestia\extras directory and the overlays as the alt surface?) Or would that be opening up a godzilla-sized can of worms?

Well, I have a lot of VTs in the hires folder, and the maps superimpose nicely over the hires textures.

Grant

Great idea !

Come on Grant, you've got to have the UK as a comparison map

Hi, my friends!
I would appreciate Italy, as a comparison map, too
Bye bye
Pierluigi

Hi,

... and what about Germany?

Ciao
Dora

See, this is why I didn't start with Europe. We just need a few countries of different sizes, and whichever ones I choose will lead to complaints from citizens of the others.

Grant

I would be very pleased with Europe as a whole! Am I the only "real" European here?

Hi,

Germany as a whole would be great!

Ciao
Dora

Buzz wrote:I would be very pleased with Europe as a whole! Am I the only "real" European here?

Let's kick ass of nationalist's people

Howdy Grant,

Great idea and implementation! Thanks!

What about for stars? Is the Earth too small to be shown on the sun?

One note: When looking at Venus, one must turn Clouds off.

Any chance of having a comparison map of Bhutan ?......

....Nah, I'll settle for Europe.