Project "Celestia Origin", release dated April 30, 2019

[Art Blos]

Added improved model of the "Magellan".

[Art Blos]

Added improved model of the "Chandra".

[Lafuente_Astronomy]

The Gaia one really looks nice!

[Art Blos]

Monolithic textures in the "lores" and "medres" folders are replaced with virtual tiles of the appropriate quality. This made it possible to improve the rendering of the polar regions and significantly increased productivity.

[Art Blos]

Added 32K-virtual textures and normals of the Venus. Implemented two modes - gray (default) and color (alternative).

[fyr02]

nice!
One Suggestion:
May I suggest that the default texture be tinted slightly yellow/brown to simulate the true color of Venus as seen from Venera 13 here:
https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2014/04/Venera.jpg
and from Venera 13/14 here:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Chc9kslUcAAFiJJ.jpg
It probably won't be super accurate, but I feel like it will be at least somewhat better than pure gray.

[Art Blos]

fyr02 < The gray surface is left by default for a variety of reasons:

1) The original virtual tiles were such, and physically repainting almost 3 thousand files is not a trivial task.
2) Even if the repainting was successful, we would have lost the opportunity to use the same texture in different color variations. Either would have to make different copies, which will certainly increase the size of the finished archive.
3) Mode switching is implemented using the Color and BlendTexture parameters. They have one unpleasant bug - colorization not only the surface, but also clouds and a visible point from a long distance (onetwothree and pirogronian on a note ).

Therefore, I can add the proposed coloring, but it will also be an alternative. In general, the real color of Venus is a rather controversial issue.

[CM1215]

Art Blos, in case you're curious, I colorized John Van Vliet's Venus VT a while back to match the Magellan colors using a GIMP batch editor plugin. The result is very close (if not identical to) the Magellan colors. I colorized all the way down to the 64k layer (I haven't done the 128k layer yet, however I could do it).
A view with the Celestia Origin default atmosphere enabled:

And a few screenshots with atmospheres disabled:

I could upload it if you (or anyone else) wanted it, and if @John Van Vliet is ok with it.

[SpaceFanatic64]

Release it, please! Just get John Van Vliet's permission first.

[Art Blos]

Art Blos, in case you're curious, I colorized John Van Vliet's Venus VT a while back to match the Magellan colors using a GIMP batch editor plugin. The result is very close (if not identical to) the Magellan colors. I colorized all the way down to the 64k layer (I haven't done the 128k layer yet, however I could do it)

Thank you, but I am convinced that the surface brightness and color obtained by us is more true. The mark false colors is often indicated in the descriptions of the radar photos from "Magellan".

We were guided by the photographs of the Soviet "Venera", made in the optical range directly from the surface, as well as their modern processing. In addition, the same spacecrafts was installed soil composition - mainly volcanic basalt. In total it turns out that the soil has a very low albedo and is poorly illuminated by sunlight. And without atmospheric lighting, it would be close to gray.

However, I have an idea how to increase the brightness of entire surface at request of user.

[CM1215]

SpaceFanatic64, I have sent a permission request to @John Van Vliet via private message on the Celestial Matters Forum. I am awaiting his reply.

Art Blos, I do understand that the Magellan colors are not really true colors, but perhaps the Magellan colors would make a good alternate surface, similar to the false color and enhanced color maps of the other Solar System bodies.

[Goofy]

Hi.
About "real" Venus color, I suggest you to give a look at this long discussion about this, I think it will be interesting.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8116&hilit=venus+real+color
Unfortunately images links are working no more
Bye.
Goofy

[anidotnet]

Does Celestia Origin work on Ubuntu 19.04 64-bit? I have installed celestia from source from master. Do I need any additional dependency to install for Celestia Origin?

Added after 8 hours 35 minutes:
I have tried installing it on Ubuntu. I followed the install.bat instructions to delete the files from my Celestia directory (fresh install from building source). After that I have copied the zip contents to the application directory. There are some minor glitches, apart from that it's working.

Glitch 1.

When I run the Celestia, I am getting above error dialog. After clicking ok, it opens the app. But this dialog is annoying.

Glitch 2.

4 blank reference points are coming up in browser as above.

Glitch 3.

Some unknown items are also coming in the browser, which points to Sol. Not sure what they are for.

Apart from the above issues, all other things seems fine at a first glance. If I encounter more, I'll update the list. I'll highly appreciate if someone shed some light on these issues. Am I doing something wrong?

[pirogronian]

@anidotnet
In the first post of this topic there is a full installation instruction.

[Art Blos]

Does Celestia Origin work on Ubuntu 19.04 64-bit?

"Celestia Origin" works correctly only under Wine. Celestia 1.5.1 for Linux devoid of many features which is in the latest version 1.6.1 for Windows.

[Art Blos]

The maximum quality of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Moon has been increased to a resolution 64K. Next version CO should be divided into three parts depending on the quality that user needs.

[Gurren Lagann]

That's interesting... Celestia Origin v9 has 64k Mercury, 64k Venus, 64k Earth and 64k Moon, but not 64k Mars!
But why? Do you guys have lack of data on Mars despite there being 5 active orbiters at once for half a decade?

[Lafuente_Astronomy]

That's interesting... Celestia Origin v9 has 64k Mercury, 64k Venus, 64k Earth and 64k Moon, but not 64k Mars!
But why? Do you guys have lack of data on Mars despite there being 5 active orbiters at once for half a decade?

It appears it's hard to find a 64K mars surface map. Perhaps because such detailed information is still being withheld by NASA or any other Space Agency and might be released later in the years to come, or anyone else didn't think of making it yet. With regards to the 64k surfaces of the other inner planets, I think I saw either a 128k, 256k or 512k surface of the Earth either on the Celestia Motherlode(Probably the ones made by Jestr) or somewhere in the internet.

Added after 1 minute 49 seconds:
In relation to the resolutions of Earth higher than 64k, here is one, although you have to buy it: https://www.bestof3dmodels.eu/turbosquid_3dmodel/512k-ultimate-earth-3d-model

[anidotnet]

Celestia Origin" works correctly only under Wine. Celestia 1.5.1 for Linux devoid of many features which is in the latest version 1.6.1 for Windows.

I am running latest Celestia on Ubuntu 19.04. I have built it from source taken from master, didn't use any prebuilt old binary. If I am not mistaken, I guess it will be on par with 1.6.1 of Windows.

Added after 17 minutes 17 seconds:

In the first post of this topic there is a full installation instruction.

I have used the instructions laid out in install.bat to remove files and folders from original Celestia installation dir. If you are mentioning something else, please provide a link.

Can anyone please help me to determine what are these errors I am facing currently in linux and why?

[Art Blos]

I have built it from source taken from master, didn't use any prebuilt old binary

This is root of the problem. We tested CO only on official builds.

It appears it's hard to find a 64K mars surface map.

Yes exactly.