Compass for Celestia 1.6

[Vincent]

Following Martin's suggestion, I've extracted the compass from the Lua Edu Tools to make it a simplier addon.
I've made this for people who don't need all the Lua Edu Tools stuff, or simply don't want to bother with it...

> Below are the download links for both the English and the French version of the compass.

HOW TO INSTALL THE COMPASS ?
1- Unzip the 'compass.zip' package in your 'celestia/' base directory.

- The 'compass/' dir should go into your 'extras/' dir
- The 'luahookinit.lua' file should go into your 'celestia/' base dir

2- Add this line to your celestia.cfg file :

Configuration
{
LuaHook "luahookinit.lua" # <-- Line to add
...

HOW TO USE THE COMPASS ?
- The compass, azimuth and elevation are automatically displayed when the observer goes
onto the surface of a planet using the [Ctrl] + [G] keys.
- The longitude and latitude coordinates are displayed when the observer is at a distance of
10 times the radius of the reference object or closer.

Enjoy!

[Cham]

Thanks a LOT for this impressive work, Vincent !

This is an ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE addon. IMHO, this is one of these things that should be included in the official code.

[Fenerit]

Thanks, Vincent! Hope that this isn't the beginning of a LUATOOLS abandon, though.

[Cham]

Thanks, Vincent! Hope that this isn't the beginning of a LUATOOLS abandon, though.

The LuaTools was the first Celestia "plug-in" for Celestia (a kind of super Photoshop-like plug-in, as the KPT Tools). IMO, its "problem" is it's too ambitious and needs a complicated configuration from its user. For me, it is just too much. It may be a good alternative to see many smaller plug-ins for Celestia (without any configuration to do). So this compass plug-in is the first of its kind for Celestia.

So we now have "layers" and "multi-layers" (invisible addons with a toggle CELX switch), and now the "plug-ins" !

[Fenerit]

Thanks, Vincent! Hope that this isn't the beginning of a LUATOOLS abandon, though.

The LuaTools was the first Celestia "plug-in" for Celestia (a kind of super Photoshop-like plug-in, as the KPT Tools). IMO, its "problem" is it's too ambitious and needs a complicated configuration from its user. For me, it is just too much. It may be a good alternative to see many smaller plug-ins for Celestia (without any configuration to do). So this compass plug-in is the first of its kind for Celestia.

So we now have "layers" and "multi-layers" (invisible addons with a toggle CELX switch), and now the "plug-ins" !

Yeah! I wonder whether Vincent could say more about a Lua project of a Lua library for forms, buttons, tabs etc called VCLua:
http://luaforge.net/projects/vclua/
which seem ready for both Win and Linux (probably also Mac will be added). With this kind of library we could to have more "buttons to press" for somethings...

[BobHegwood]

Just wanted to add my thanks for this add-on...
Excellent addition (and instructions for the Brain-Dead )

Thanks again, Bob

[Fenerit]

Thanks, Vincent! Hope that this isn't the beginning of a LUATOOLS abandon, though.

The LuaTools was the first Celestia "plug-in" for Celestia (a kind of super Photoshop-like plug-in, as the KPT Tools). IMO, its "problem" is it's too ambitious and needs a complicated configuration from its user. For me, it is just too much. It may be a good alternative to see many smaller plug-ins for Celestia (without any configuration to do). So this compass plug-in is the first of its kind for Celestia.

So we now have "layers" and "multi-layers" (invisible addons with a toggle CELX switch), and now the "plug-ins" !

Mmmm... Hey Cham, I do not think that this is the right method for plugins. The lua_edu_tools.lua file will ever be different, and mutually does exclude each one new. Otherwise the main LUATOOls might to works, instead they doesn't work at all when this compass' add-on is installed.

[Teto]

Great job! I like it!

We can be "on" a planet and know where is the north, now...

I vote for this! (Maybe inside the next distribution?)
Teto.

[Vincent]

Here's another version of the compass with an extra display of the celestial coordinates for the current selection.
The display of coordinates can be toggled on/off using Ctrl+a.

[Fenerit]

Will these new features also embedded in LUAEDUTOOLS' compass?

[Cham]

I just tested the English compass on a fresh official Celestia 1.6.0, on a MacBook Pro 15" with OS X Snow-Leopard (while testing Celestia in an Apple store), and it's working correctly!

So I suspect that the users which are experiencing a problem with Snow-Leopard and the compass didn't installed the plug-in correctly.

EDIT : The coordinates are working right too on Snow-Leopard, by the way...

Vincent : There's a small spacing problem with the coordinates from your plug-in, as published here : the coordinates are a bit too close to the standard coordinates given in the HUD. Of course, there isn't any problem of this kind with my personal version (coordinates centered verticaly).

[Vincent]

I just tested the English compass on a fresh official Celestia 1.6.0, on a MacBook Pro 15" with OS X Snow-Leopard (while testing Celestia in an Apple store), and it's working correctly!

Martin,

Thanks a lot! That is good news.
Still, it would be good to find the cause of the problem ?ivind is exepriencing on his system.

Vincent : There's a small spacing problem with the coordinates from your plug-in, as published here : the coordinates are a bit too close to the standard coordinates given in the HUD. Of course, there isn't any problem of this kind with my personal version (coordinates centered verticaly).

Yes, that is wanted. After sending you the French version, I chose to place the coordinates just below the standard Selection information in the English version.

Will these new features also embedded in LUAEDUTOOLS' compass?

Massimo,

The display of Equatorial Coordinates (Ra / Dec) is already part of the Tools.
As you suggested, I'll add the Ecliptic and Galactic coordinates display as well.

[Vincent]

I've made the following changes to the compass:
- Disabled the compass for DSO's
- Fixed inverted longitude for bodies with retrograde rotation (Venus, Uranus and Pluto)

[Vincent]

New update:
- Made the long/lat values match the values read onto the planetographic grid for oblate spheroid bodies.
- Made the compass enabled only for planets (+ Pluto) and planets' major moons.
As to locations and spacecraft, the long/lat values displayed are those of the parent body.

This addon is now considered as finished. An annoucement with download links has been added
to the "Add-on releases" forum: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15564

[BobHegwood]

Thanks very much for the updates Vincent...
Will happily apply these shortly.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

[Vincent]

Thanks very much for the updates Vincent...
Will happily apply these shortly.

Bob,

You're welcome.
Please let me know how it works on your system.