A digital theater in Mexico using CELESTIA

[Ramón]

Hello, good moorning everyone.
My name is Ramon Vargas and I work in a science museum in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz, in Mexico.
First of all, I really want to thankyou all you guys for the excellent work on the development of Celestia, especially for the usual guys (Crhis, Toti, Fridger, Frank Gregorio, Don Edwards, Runar, Selden, etc., etc.)
Two months ago my partner (Erasmo) and I adapt an small auditorium so we can talk about astronomy using Celestia, Stellarium and Partiview and some other multimedia presentations.
I will like to post some pictures of this place but I don't not how to do it (Any one can tell me how?).
In the meantime, my partner and I are moving into our next project, which is to make this digital theater a moving one, so we can go to remote places from the place we live and teach some science and astronomy to the people with small resources and who can't come to our museum.
We are trying to decide the best way to build this new project so I have some questions and wishes:
1. I don't know much about C programing (but I can learn). Is there a way to distort the output of Celestia so the image can be projected on a dome? I supose I have to deal with some code of cooordinates trasformations (from rectangulars to spherical perhaps)

2. This is for Andrea Peloni. After seen your web page about STAR TOWN I decide to build our digital theater. I got from that place your cel program "Virtual planetarium". Is there a way to get some other programs or your shows? I try to acces the web site of STAR TOWn but it seems doesn't longer exist.

3. Thanks to Frank Gregorio for his excellent educational activities (and to all the others guys who support him in doing this). My partner and I are working in the development of cel scripts (maybe celx) of this activities so we can use as shows for the digital theater (is that okay with you Frank?). As soon we finished, we post it.

4. Any chance that we can control audio from witihn a celx script? Nothing fancy, just play, pause and stop.

Many thanks again for all the wonderfull things you had made for us .
Best regards from Xalapa.

[selden]

While I can't help with the coding, you might take a look at
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/p ... omemirror/
which describes relatively inexpensive method for projecting on a dome.

[Ramón]

Thanks a lot Selden for your quick response, I already check the web page of Paul Bourke. We already use a spherical mirror to project in the dome of our planetarium but the image of celestia is distorted because is made to be projected on a flat screen, not in a dome. So you have to deform the image before you can send it to the mirror, very much in the way Stellarium does.
This program has a fisheye projection mode, so when you send this predistorted image to the mirror, you got an undistorted image on the dome
By the way, can you tell me how can I include images in a post?
Thanks again.

[fsgregs]

Dear Ramon:

I'm delighted to learn that you are using Celestia and our educational Activities in a moving digital theater. That is GREAT!!! By all means, use any of my work that you wish.

I know nothing about projections and domes, so I can't help you there. Also, there is currently no way to start or stop a sound file or recorder or music file from within Celestia or from within a script. It would be GREAT if some of our script writers could prepare a celx script to do so (HINT!!!! ).

Of course, you can always launch a recorded sound file separately. Just click on it to start it going using your computer's regular sound player, then launch Celestia a few seconds later and begin your scripted show. Both programs will be running and they should work just fine.

To include images in a post, you first have to store them on a website that has a URL address. Then, right-click on the image and read its full link address. It should read something like: http://www.image.com/myalbum/image1.jpg", or something like that.

Then, copy that web address. Now, when drafting this post, you will see a row of buttons at the top of your posting screen. One of the buttons is named "Img". When you are ready to include an image, click on that button once, then paste your image's exact web address, then click on the Img button again.

If things worked out OK, then when you preview or submit your post, you should see the image embedded in the post.

Keep us posted.

Regards,

Frank Gregorio

[ANDREA]

I will like to post some pictures of this place but I don't not how to do it (Any one can tell me how?)..

Hello Ramon, along with Fgreg's answer, this is the link for uploading images freely:

Code: Select all

http://www.imageshack.us/

2. This is for Andrea Peloni. After seen your web page about STAR TOWN I decide to build our digital theater. I try to acces the web site of STAR TOWn but it seems doesn't longer exist

My family name is Pelloni.
Correct, I follow no more those pages, but you can go to the new one:

Code: Select all

http://www.ara.roma.it/frames/eng/obs/obs_frame.htm

I got from that place your cel program "Virtual planetarium". Is there a way to get some other programs or your shows? I

I can give you all the scripts I produced or modified for public shows, and even if they are in Italian, I think you'll have no problems to make the needed translations.
The only problem is that you'll need for each of them the right files, textures, stc, models, etc.
I can see one possibility: if you want, I can put everything on a DVD, and ship it to your address (obviously free of charge!).
But remember one most important thing, anyhow: ALL my scripts, with only the "Virtual Planetarium" exception, have been produced for use on PC with high-level graphic cards.
Mine, as shown here below, is not so bad but many times the framerate gulps and slows down consistently, giving an ugly effect.
For this reason I've just ordered a 6800 ULTRA 256 MB, and things will go surely better.
Here the list of the shows I've actually ready for you:
1- The Monsters of Sky
2- Cassini to Titan
3- Mars
4- Jupiter
5- Saturn
6- The Worlds of Fantasy
7- The Space Conquest
and many more under development.
Tell me what you prefer to do.
Bye

Andrea

[Ramón]

I make a mistake, the post is down under

[Ramón]

A second mistake. Sorry

[Ramón]

Hello everybody.
Many thanks for all your help.
Now I know, thanks to Frank Gregorio and Andrea Pelloni how to post image.
So here we go. First, the entrance to our digital theater:



Now, a view or the equipment we use:



We use a computer with 1GB of RAM, a GeForce videocard with 128 MB, a joystick and all the video output is send to a DLP video projector .
For the audio part, we set an audio mixer. We conect it to a Home theater, a DVD player, to the sound card of the computer and to a wireless microphone.

This is my partner, Erasmo, giving a lecturer:



And this is me doing the same:



And here we have some kindergarten kids in the theater:






The project for the traveling Digital Theater will be ready for January 2006. I'll keep you inform.

For Andrea: thanks very much for been so kind. Yes, we like very much to have your shows on DVD. We are going to upgrade our equippemnts (2 GB of Ram, some powerfull graphic card, we don't decide which one yet, 3.0 GHZ, etc.), so I think we don't have problem running your shows.
This is my address if you can send to us the DVD:

Ramon Vargas Salas
Circuito Quetzales No. 131
Colonia Fuentes de las Animas
C.P. 91190
Xalapa, Veracruz
Mexico

Thanks in advance to you Andrea, and really, if there is any cost for the DVD, just let us know. REALLY.

For Frank: Thanks very much for your activities. As soon as we have the cel or celx scripts of your activities, we let you know.

Best regards from Mexico

[ANDREA]

Hello everybody.
Many thanks for all your help.
Now I know, thanks to Frank Gregorio and Andrea Pelloni how to post image.
For Andrea: thanks very much for been so kind. Yes, we like very much to have your shows on DVD. We are going to upgrade our equippemnts (2 GB of Ram, some powerfull graphic card, we don't decide which one yet, 3.0 GHZ, etc.), so I think we don't have problem running your shows.
Thanks in advance to you Andrea, and really, if there is any cost for the DVD, just let us know. REALLY.
For Frank: Thanks very much for your activities. As soon as we have the cel or celx scripts of your activities, we let you know.
Best regards from Mexico

Hello Ramon, you are welcome.
I've been in your wonderful country for a very nice holiday this April.
I visited the archeological Maya sites with my wife, in Teotihuacan, Uxmal, Merida, Palenque, Campeche, Chich?©n-Itz??, and it's been wonderful.
Coming back to Celestia, within a week I'll ship you the DVD (no charge, obviously), with the needed instructions on how to use it (I'm sure you know Celestia better than me, but I made many changes in almost all the .ssc and .stc files, and so on...).
My congratulations for your astronomy theatre, it's very nice and well equipped, and with the new graphic card addition will be perfect (if you have not funds problems, there is the new Nvidia FX7800 GTX 512 MB card, that's in my dreams).
By soon

Andrea

[gonzaloch]

we are looking for MAYA SKYES license for latinamerica...
http://mayaskies.org/

but only skyskan.com has rights for US territories.

Any news?

[abramson]

Gonzalo, felicitaciones por la iniciativa del teatro digial y astron?mico! Me encanta.
Guillermo

[bh]

Superb! Good luck with this project. Great stuff.