Streamlining asteroid belts made by Asteroid Maker.

[PlutonianEmpire]

Greetings.

(EDIT: For those who are fluent in command line applications, John van Vliet has a quick alternative in the post immediately below this one. )

(NOTE: How fast this works will depend on the speed of your machine!)

If you've used the Asteroid Maker Spreadsheet, found here, you know that the output SSC code looks like this:

Code: Select all

# Generated with Asteroid Maker Version 1.6 on 2012-04-28 18:15:40.
# Reference plane: Inc = 73.4716, Asc Node = 259.3924
# Asteroids generated: 250

##############################################
# Asteroid 1 - Mass: 9.4907E+19 kg.  Class: Normal.  Moons: 0.
# Orbit family: Outer planet Trojan. Inc: 12.744787
"Asteroid 1" "Test Star" {
    Class                "asteroid"
    Texture              "juno.*"     
    Color                [ 0.500 0.460 0.420 ]
    Albedo               0.238
    # No mesh
    Radius               203.18
#BLANK
    EllipticalOrbit {
        Period           007.806619419895
        SemiMajorAxis    3.037814720800
        Eccentricity     0.124538419292
        Inclination      062.2020
        AscendingNode    265.8353
        MeanLongitude    101.2883
        LongOfPericenter 039.9133
#BLANK
    }
    Obliquity            143.9319
    EquatorAscendingNode 013.1946
    RotationOffset       039.6277
    RotationPeriod       0005.065092609533
#BLANK
}

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##############################################
# Asteroid 2 - Mass: 7.3012E+19 kg.  Class: Normal.  Moons: 0.
# Orbit family: Main Belt. Inc: 05.141894
"Asteroid 2" "Test Star" {
    Class                "asteroid"
    Texture              "ceres.*"     
    Color                [ 0.300 0.300 0.300 ]
    Albedo               0.113
    Mesh                 "roughsphere.cms"
    Radius               183.49
#BLANK
    EllipticalOrbit {
        Period           004.989857409931
        SemiMajorAxis    2.254125199676
        Eccentricity     0.066462466605
        Inclination      073.8369
        AscendingNode    264.7375
        MeanLongitude    034.8486
        LongOfPericenter 310.0781
#BLANK
    }
    Obliquity            037.4579
    EquatorAscendingNode 020.4785
    RotationOffset       328.7109
    RotationPeriod       0007.633821692053
#BLANK
}

We all know that removing all of the superfluous "#BLANK" lines can be a big pain, but there is actually a quick and dirty way of removing all of these lines in just a few easy mouse and keyboard maneuvers.

For this, the text editing program Notepad++ is ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED!

This tutorial will assume you have both Asteroid Maker and Notepad++ installed and working on your machine.

Note: My version of Notepad++ is 5.9.6.2, so I don't know how far back before this this tutorial may work.

Step 1:
Generate your asteroid belt with the Asteroid Maker, select the entire first column on the "Celestia" page by clicking the capital "A". Copy and paste into an open window/tab on Notepad++.



First thing you will notice, you will notice a HUGE number of completely blank lines. The number of blank lines pasted into Notepad++ depends on your machine. On mine, I got about a million lines.

Step 2:
Open the "Find" Dialog box, which is under the "Search" menu, (or can be opened by clicking the binoculars on the toolbar or pressing "CTRL+F" on windows machines.) and type the name of the VERY LAST ASTEROID generated. I generated 250 asteroids, so for me, I type in "Asteroid 250". Make sure to click on the "Up" button in the "direction" section of the dialog box. This will tell Notepad++ which way to search. If you're at the top of the page (the very beginning of the file), select "Down".

Click the "Find Next" button, which will take you to the last asteroid that was generated.



Step 3:
Scroll down to the end of the definitions for that asteroid (if it has a moon, go to the end of that; if there's more than one, go to the end of the last moon), and left+click on that to put the cursor there.



Next, to select EVERYTHING after that line, go to the very bottom of the page, and while holding down "Shift", click the very last line. Everything between the end of the last asteroid's definition should be selected. Hit "Backspace" to delete it.



Close the "Find" dialog box.

Step 4:
This is the fun part.

Go to the very top of the page. See that very first "#BLANK"? Left+click on the very end of the PREVIOUS line, after the last digit. Keeping the mouse pointer at that spot, hold down the left mouse button, and drag down ONE line, so both the ending of that line AND the "#BLANK" are highlighted.



Now, go under the "Search" menu, and click on the "Replace" entry, to open the "Replace" dialog box. (Keyboard shortcut: CTRL+H; toolbar shortcut: the blue button right next to the binoculars.) The highlighted lines should already appear in the "Find what:" text box. Now, this will seem silly, but the "Replace with:" text box should be COMPLETELY EMPTY. If there's a word in there, DELETE IT. Make absolutely sure there are no spaces in there either.



Now, left+click on the "Replace All" button, and let the computer do all the work deleting all of the superfluous "#BLANK"s.

WARNING: HOW FAST THE "#BLANK"S ARE DELETED DEPENDS ON THE SPEED OF YOUR COMPUTER! SLOWER MACHINES WILL TAKE LONGER TO PROCESS THE REQUEST! ALSO, THE PROGRAM WILL NOT RESPOND WHILE IT IS PROCESSING THE REQUEST!

When it is all finished, the code should now look like this:

Code: Select all

# Generated with Asteroid Maker Version 1.6 on 2012-04-28 18:30:38.
# Reference plane: Inc = 73.4716, Asc Node = 259.3924
# Asteroids generated: 250

##############################################
# Asteroid 1 - Mass: 6.5542E+20 kg.  Class: Normal.  Moons: 0.
# Orbit family: Main Belt. Inc: 04.727306
"Asteroid 1" "Tutorial" {
    Class                "asteroid"
    Texture              "kleopatra.*"
    Color                [ 0.300 0.300 0.300 ]
    Albedo               0.160
    # No mesh
    Radius               368.71
    EllipticalOrbit {
        Period           001.406838429008
        SemiMajorAxis    0.969204508836
        Eccentricity     0.054606875301
        Inclination      068.7446
        AscendingNode    259.4536
        MeanLongitude    031.1133
        LongOfPericenter 150.2051
    }
    Obliquity            110.5444
    EquatorAscendingNode 094.9878
    RotationOffset       126.7822
    RotationPeriod       0007.287444247373
}

##############################################
# Asteroid 2 - Mass: 2.3755E+20 kg.  Class: Normal.  Moons: 0.
# Orbit family: Main Belt. Inc: 07.177536
"Asteroid 2" "Tutorial" {
    Class                "asteroid"
    Texture              "geographos.*"
    Color                [ 0.520 0.470 0.420 ]
    Albedo               0.326
    # No mesh
    Radius               262.78
    EllipticalOrbit {
        Period           002.816804427216
        SemiMajorAxis    1.539656147347
        Eccentricity     0.068873447514
        Inclination      072.8941
        AscendingNode    266.8668
        MeanLongitude    016.6992
        LongOfPericenter 087.2424
    }
    Obliquity            011.5906
    EquatorAscendingNode 057.0410
    RotationOffset       194.5679
    RotationPeriod       0026.880976807052
}

##############################################
# Asteroid 3 - Mass: 6.3811E+19 kg.  Class: Normal.  Moons: 0.
# Orbit family: Main Belt. Inc: 10.755349
"Asteroid 3" "Tutorial" {
    Class                "asteroid"
    Texture              "ky26.*"
    Color                [ 0.300 0.300 0.300 ]
    Albedo               0.150
    Mesh                 "proteus.cmod"
    Radius               171.42
    EllipticalOrbit {
        Period           001.272856336403
        SemiMajorAxis    0.906648338066
        Eccentricity     0.166872865453
        Inclination      083.0165
        AscendingNode    254.3224
        MeanLongitude    141.1633
        LongOfPericenter 153.0835
    }
    Obliquity            036.1450
    EquatorAscendingNode 275.9216
    RotationOffset       216.3208
    RotationPeriod       0031.897462105270
}

Note: If you have multiple asteroid belt files open at the same time, you can left+click the "Replace All in All Opened Documents". Granted, it will take extra time to process the request, but the results should be the same.

So, that's that. You should now have a "quick" and dirty way to trim your generated asteroid belts.

So far, it's working for me. Of course, whether or not this actually works for you will probably depend on multiple variables, including Notepad++ versions, machine specs, operating systems, etc.

Lemme know how well this works for you.

Have fun.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[Goofy]

small shell one liner

Code: Select all

 cat Asteroid.ssc  | sed s/#BLANK// | grep -v '^$' > Asteroid.clean.ssc


...

Hello John, sorry to trouble you with my absolute ignorance on the matter, but I tried your command line as follows

cat asteroid.ssc | sed s/#BLANK// | grep -v '^$' > asteroid.noBlank.ssc

named it as "asteroid-bat"
and launched it using CMD.
The result was
"Error: "cat" is not recognized as internal or external command, as an executable file or a batch file".
Then I tried renaming the file as "asteroid-cat",
launched it with CMD, no Error but the asteroid.ssc file was not worked.
Where am I wrong?
Am I missing something?
Please help me, John, and thank you very much.

Goofy

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[Goofy]

well it is a bash shell command
not a Microsoft USELESS cmd.exe command
install a real shell on windows and it will work

John, for this I should use Cygwin on Windows 7, correct?
Doh! (Homer Simpson's cry )
Hummm, it looks too complex for me.
I think that Plutoniam Empire's method, even if way longer, can solve my problem without the need to learn something that's very far away from my knowledge.
Thank you anyway.
Bye

Goofy

[PlutonianEmpire]

I think that Plutoniam Empire's method, even if way longer, can solve my problem without the need to learn something that's very far away from my knowledge.

Nonetheless, I updated the OP to include a link to Vliet's post for those looking for a quicker alternative.

[Fenerit]

For a console inside Notepad++, do take a look at NppExec plugin here: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/notepad-plus/index.php?title=Plugin_Central#N
It does manage/run the scripts on Notepad++ and more. Typing cmd <ENTER> it does activate the Win shell command within itself; performing calls to external interpreters. Useful to run Perl scripts or whatelse.

npp_1.png

[Chuft-Captain]

The same can be achieved quicker within NP++ by using it's extended search capabilities...

After pasting into Notepad++, bring up the replace dialog (ctrl-H).

FIRSTLY:
Make sure that "Wrap Around" and Search Mode "Extended" are both selected....

Then...

To get rid of multiple repeated #BLANK's....

step1.JPG

Click Replace All or Replace in all Docs.
....This now leaves only single non-repeated #BLANKS in the file(s)

I like to keep a bit of whitespace, so I would replace these remaining TAGS with a single blank line as follows:

step2.JPG

(If you like less whitespace like the OP, just don't put the "\n" in the "Replace With:" box.)


An alternative to STEP 2 is to use the regex approach (which can acheive much more sophisticated single line searches / pattern matches, but is really overkill for a situation as simple as this...
However. for those that are interested to learn about this:

regex.JPG

achieves the same result (for the final step only).

CC

[Goofy]

The same can be achieved quicker within NP++ by using it's extended search capabilities... After pasting into Notepad++ .... CC

Hi Chuff.
Your approach was the winning one, at least for me.
All worked quickly and flawlessly.
Thanks a lot, very appreciated.
Moreover this will move me to try to understand a bit more on Notepad++
Bye

Goofy

[Chuft-Captain]

Glad to be of help.
All the different approaches above will do the job. The "winner" is just a matter of personal preference -- whatever works for you.
That's the good thing about Notepad++, it offers "many ways to skin the cat".

Personally, I like to have the "extended" search capabilities permanently selected, as the ability to match and/or insert newlines, tabs, and other special chars is invaluable. I also use the regex functionality less frequently.

Glad also to see people (eg. the OP) making use of my "user-defined language for SSC's" in Notepad++.

CC

[Goofy]

Hi all.
I'm just curious to understand the reason why the results of using asteroid-maker.xls for me are the (wrong!) following ones:

Code: Select all

# Asteroid 2 - Mass: 44.770e+15 kg.  Class: Normal.  Moons: 0.
# Orbit family: Main Belt. Inc: 00.000.004
"Asteroid 2" "Lalande 21185" {
    Class                "asteroid"
    Texture              "ida.*"     
    Color                [ 0.000 0.000 0.000 ]
    Albedo               0.000
    Mesh                 "roughsphere.cms"
    Radius               160,85

    EllipticalOrbit {
        Period           000.000.000.000.001
        SemiMajorAxis    0.000.000.000.001
        Eccentricity     0.000.000.000.000
        Inclination      0.000.072
        AscendingNode    0.000.256
        MeanLongitude    0.000.068
        LongOfPericenter 0.000.316

    }
    Obliquity            0.000.086
    EquatorAscendingNode 0.000.184
    RotationOffset       0.000.252
    RotationPeriod       0.000.000.000.000.023

It's been obtained using asteroid-maker.xls "straight from the box", without any change, I only pressed F9 as suggested.
I supposed the reason was due to a mistake in the "Celestia decimal point – usually "."" and/or "Locale decimal point", so I made the four possible combinations, pressed F9, no positive results.
Anyone else with my same problem?
I can only add that I'm using OpenOffice.Org Calc and not win Office Excel.
May be this is the reason why, and perhaps I've to do something for this (except buying Win Office, obviously! ) ?
Thanks a lot for your help.
Bye

Goofy

[Chuft-Captain]

Further to my earlier post...
You may have noticed that AsteroidMaker sometimes leaves a number of leading zeroes on some values, so another useful cleanup would be to get rid of these unnecessary zeros, just to make the file more readable. In fact Celestia doesn't care one way or the other whether those zeros are present, but for asthetic reasons, you might like to remove them.

This is a good example to demonstrate the power of regular expressions, as it would be difficult to find and remove all of these scenarios quickly and easily without regex.

So, firstly, how to describe what needs to be done?

Well, we need to remove any sequence of 1 or more zeros, but only when they are immediately preceded by a <space>, and followed by at least 1 non-zero digit and a sequence of 0 or more other digits.
ie, we want to retain zeros which immediately precede the decimal place, and we don't want to remove any zeros following the decimal point.

So, what regular expression will do this for us?
This will do the job in a single step...

Find What:

([ ])([0]*)([1-9][0-9]*)([.])

Replace With:

\1\3\4

regex-stripzeros.JPG

leaving the file looking like this:

Code: Select all

# Generated with Asteroid Maker Version 1.6 on 2012-04-28 18:15:40.
# Reference plane: Inc = 73.4716, Asc Node = 259.3924
# Asteroids generated: 250

##############################################
# Asteroid 1 - Mass: 9.4907E+19 kg.  Class: Normal.  Moons: 0.
# Orbit family: Outer planet Trojan. Inc: 12.744787
"Asteroid 1" "Test Star" {
   Class                "asteroid"
   Texture              "juno.*"     
   Color                [ 0.500 0.460 0.420 ]
   Albedo               0.238
   # No mesh
   Radius               203.18


   EllipticalOrbit {
      Period           7.806619419895
      SemiMajorAxis    3.037814720800
      Eccentricity     0.124538419292
      Inclination      62.2020
      AscendingNode    265.8353
      MeanLongitude    101.2883
      LongOfPericenter 39.9133


   }
   Obliquity            143.9319
   EquatorAscendingNode 13.1946
   RotationOffset       39.6277
   RotationPeriod       5.065092609533


}

##############################################
# Asteroid 2 - Mass: 7.3012E+19 kg.  Class: Normal.  Moons: 0.
# Orbit family: Main Belt. Inc: 5.141894
"Asteroid 2" "Test Star" {
   Class                "asteroid"
   Texture              "ceres.*"     
   Color                [ 0.300 0.300 0.300 ]
   Albedo               0.113
   Mesh                 "roughsphere.cms"
   Radius               183.49


   EllipticalOrbit {
      Period           4.989857409931
      SemiMajorAxis    2.254125199676
      Eccentricity     0.066462466605
      Inclination      73.8369
      AscendingNode    264.7375
      MeanLongitude    34.8486
      LongOfPericenter 310.0781


   }
   Obliquity            37.4579
   EquatorAscendingNode 20.4785
   RotationOffset       328.7109
   RotationPeriod       7.633821692053


}

To understand how this works, see the following info on the regex conventions implemented by NP++: http://www.scintilla.org/SciTERegEx.html

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to describe what the following would do if used instead of the above:
Find What:

([ ])([0]*)([1-9][0-9]*)([.])([0-9]*)([1-9]+)([0]*)$

Replace With:

\1\3\4\5\6

[Goofy]

Chuff, you solved my problem (even if it was not a reply to my question) two minutes after my message
Thanks a lot, I'll try it.
Bye

Goofy

[Chuft-Captain]

Chuff, you solved my problem (even if it was not a reply to my question) two minutes after my message
Thanks a lot, I'll try it.
Bye

Goofy

Really???,
Your problem appears to be related to an incorrect cut and paste operation between openoffice and notepad++. I doubt if my last post will help with that as that post is only related to tidying up the file once it is successfully pasted into NP++.

CC

[Goofy]

Chuff, you solved my problem (even if it was not a reply to my question) two minutes after my message
Thanks a lot, I'll try it.
Bye
Goofy

Really???,
Your problem appears to be related to an incorrect cut and paste operation between openoffice and notepad++. I doubt if my last post will help with that as that post is only related to tidying up the file once it is successfully pasted into NP++.
CC

Sorry, mine was just a hope, as I wrote: "I'll try it".
But this opens a big doubt: what is the right way to copy and paste from OpenOffice to Notepad++?
Is there a specific procedure, somewhere?
Can you please bring me to the light?
I'm desperate for the difficulty to use an excel spreadsheet like asteroid-maker.xls.
Thanks a lot, Chuff.
Bye

Goofy

[PlutonianEmpire]

Chuff, you solved my problem (even if it was not a reply to my question) two minutes after my message
Thanks a lot, I'll try it.
Bye
Goofy

Really???,
Your problem appears to be related to an incorrect cut and paste operation between openoffice and notepad++. I doubt if my last post will help with that as that post is only related to tidying up the file once it is successfully pasted into NP++.
CC

Sorry, mine was just a hope, as I wrote: "I'll try it".
But this opens a big doubt: what is the right way to copy and paste from OpenOffice to Notepad++?
Is there a specific procedure, somewhere?
Can you please bring me to the light?
I'm desperate for the difficulty to use an excel spreadsheet like asteroid-maker.xls.
Thanks a lot, Chuff.
Bye

Goofy

On the "Celestia" page, click on the "A", as seen in this edited screengrab:

tutorial8.jpg

The letters at the top represent the columns of boxes, while the numbers represent the rows of boxes. Clicking on a letter will select the whole column, and clicking on a number selects the whole row.

If you simply click on a single letter, as shown in the above screengrab, you'll select just that column, which means you can safely copy/paste it into your SSC file without all those annoying unneeded spaces messing up the code. The only unneeded empty spaces occur at just the very bottom. How big that part is depends on your computer specs.

Does this help?

[Goofy]

On the "Celestia" page, click on the "A", as seen in this edited screengrab:
The letters at the top represent the columns of boxes, while the numbers represent the rows of boxes. Clicking on a letter will select the whole column, and clicking on a number selects the whole row.
If you simply click on a single letter, as shown in the above screengrab, you'll select just that column, which means you can safely copy/paste it into your SSC file without all those annoying unneeded spaces messing up the code. The only unneeded empty spaces occur at just the very bottom. How big that part is depends on your computer specs.
Does this help?

I think it will, Chuff, but here it's about 2.00 AM, so I'm going to sleep just now.
This afternoon I'll try it and give results here.
Meanwhile, thanks a lot for your kindness.
Bye

Goofy

[Chuft-Captain]

Note that it was PlutoniumEmpire who provided this last advice, not me.

Note also that the strictly correct protocol for referring to a Kzinti officer is with his full hyphenated title/rank: Chuft-Captain, ... not Chuff, Chuft, or any other abbreviated derivative.

However, as I am not really of the Kzinti race, I will accept the initials: CC

"Chuff" however, is unacceptable, as I am not of the "locomotive" race.

CC

[Goofy]

Note that it was PlutoniumEmpire who provided this last advice, not me. Note also that the strictly correct protocol for referring to a Kzinti officer is with his full hyphenated title/rank: Chuft-Captain, ... not Chuff, Chuft, or any other abbreviated derivative.
However, as I am not really of the Kzinti race, I will accept the initials: CC
"Chuff" however, is unacceptable, as I am not of the "locomotive" race.
CC

Sorry for both my mistakes, Chuff- Captain, but as I told it was 2:00 AM, and I was very tired.
Moreover I never read Niven's "The Warriors" and "The Soft Weapon" (1967), so I didn't know the meaning of your name.
Provided this, my apologies to PlutonianEmpire (hehehe, not PlutoniumEmpire as you wrote ) for my wrongly addressed thanks, that are due to his suggestion.
Bye

Goofy

[Chuft-Captain]

Sorry for both my mistakes, Chuff- Captain, but as I told it was 2:00 AM, and I was very tired.

... but still with the "F" !

... Still tired?

ps. I think "PlutoniumEmpire" has quite a ring to it.

ChufT-captain.