Mitaka Version 1.0 was released

[hank]

What is the advantage of having these features hardcoded?

- Hank

Obvious !

Not to me.

What are the advantages to have all the rest hard coded too ?

Good question. I'm not sure why any of the GUI should be hardcoded.

What are the advantages to have the most important features centralised in the same app ? What are the advantages to have an app independant from all other "layers" ?

I don't understand what you're asking here.

What are the advantages to have it NOT hard coded anyway ? :roll:

The advantage of not hardcoding the GUI is that if it's not hardcoded it can be modified without rebuilding the app.

- Hank

[neo albireo]

It took me about 30 secs to do it the way I did it. It's just the same.

OK, so it wasn't annoying at all then. Anyway, at least we all have ur toys now

[ElChristou]

Celestia should also show the coordinates on screen (Dec, RA and distance from Earth) of any selected object, like what Vincent implemented in his Lua EDU Tools. I think that his coordinates feature (and his compass) should be hard coded in Celestia.

The compass is a really great feature. It should be in Celestia's code.

I will also cast my vote on having these features hardcoded.

Bye, Anders

What is the advantage of having these features hardcoded?

- Hank

Not sure if should be harcoded or not, now seems to me that the Lua UI makes me drop the FPS a little, someone confirm?

[Vincent]

Not sure if show be harcoded or not, now seems to me the Lua UI makes me drop the FPS a little, someone confirm?

Chris,

In what condition can you notice a FPS drop ? For example, the Render Options window indeed produces a FPS drop, but it is very low compared to the standard Windows UI.

[ElChristou]

Not sure if show be harcoded or not, now seems to me the Lua UI makes me drop the FPS a little, someone confirm?

Chris,

In what condition can you notice a FPS drop ? For example, the Render Options window indeed produces a FPS drop, but it is very low compared to the standard Windows UI.

In fact I'm not 100% sure, but on my low config, enabing/disabling the Lua UI seems to give a little difference, without Celestia seems to be a bit more reactive... now perhaps on higher config, you even cannot feel it... I think there is nothing important here, was just in relation with hard coding or not a function...

[ElChristou]

I could test Mitaka...

Well it's definitively not for education -> not for low/medium config.
The Milky way is really nice, but IMHO, a mix of Celestia and Mitaka rendering would be better; let's say 70% Celestia, 30% Mitaka...

The grid system is fine, but nothing we cannot (?) do within Celestia. The // grid to the screen (centered) is really cool to determinate quickly what the actual scale of bodies on screen.

IMO Celestia is still far away from Mitaka, we just need a bit of work on some tools (via Lua or other) and that's all!

[Vincent]

In fact I'm not 100% sure, but on my low config, enabing/disabling the Lua UI seems to give a little difference, without Celestia seems to be a bit more reactive... now perhaps on higher config, you even cannot feel it... I think there is nothing important here, was just in relation with hard coding or not a function...

Chris,

Actually, I've made some FPS testing with my quite poor config (nearly the same as yours I think) and the results are quite interesting:
- With a view centered on the Earth fitting the screen, I get absolutely no FPS drop with any of the following Lua features enabled: Info+ with text and Image, Measures, Compass, Solar System browser, Render Options Setting.
- Then, as a comparison, I get a FPS drop of about 50% with the standard Solar System Browser or the standard Render Options Setting window enabled...

[chris]

The grid system is fine, but nothing we cannot (?) do within Celestia. The // grid to the screen (centered) is really cool to determinate quickly what the actual scale of bodies on screen.

IMO Celestia is still far away from Mitaka, we just need a bit of work on some tools (via Lua or other) and that's all!

This is my opinion as well . . . There's a lot that Celestia can do that just needs to be exposed through the UI. The ability to enable/disable add-ons, custom classes, and more textures and add-ons in the base package will really enhance Celestia for the average user (probably more so than some of the harder, more technical work.)

New grids and scale indicators would help a lot, too. I'm also quite fond of Mitaka's screen-aligned square that shows the object scale. It would be a great addition to Celestia, and should be easy to at least prototype with a script.

--Chris

[t00fri]

...
This is my opinion as well . . . There's a lot that Celestia can do that just needs to be exposed through the UI.
...
New grids and scale indicators would help a lot, too.
--Chris

Chris,

sure for now this is a short-time "survival" option. But I am convinced it will not really help in the longer run.

+++++++++++++++++
We do have to add conceptional innovation to the code NOT little convenience patches here and there...
At last, we also should become more systematic in what we address. We need to incorporate bigger things that are not so easily reproduced by MERELY more intensive coding efforts...
+++++++++++++++++

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

..and incidentally, the new Stellarium 0.90 already has FoV adaptable grids and many more useful projections as I just noticed....

Actually, I am just downloading 210 MILLION stars and many many custom galaxy photos.

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

...of course Stellarium 0.90 also uses the automag by default , which really works neat with 100-200 million stars. Also the star halo size /disk size just saturates around <25% ... While writing this post, I display stars of 16.5th mag (!!) next to big fuzzy 6th mag disks. Looks like I think it should look like.

Bye Fridger

[ElChristou]

...
This is my opinion as well . . . There's a lot that Celestia can do that just needs to be exposed through the UI.
...
New grids and scale indicators would help a lot, too.
--Chris

Chris,

sure for now this is a short-time "survival" option. But I am convinced it will not really help in the longer run.

+++++++++++++++++
We do have to add conceptional innovation to the code NOT little convenience patches here and there...
At last, we also should become more systematic in what we address. We need to incorporate bigger things that are not so easily reproduced by MERELY more intensive coding efforts...
+++++++++++++++++

Bye Fridger

Fridger, you know I'm not the best to give an opinion about the code so I won't talk about this but I'd like to recall that if I'm not wrong Celestia is supposed to be a frame for many kind of applications. In this optic, grid system or not is not the problem. IF the frame is large enough to display whatever you want (from mm to billions LY), then the mission is completed. What is missing is a brainstorming on how to deliver to the public such frame, what are the tools for what purpose etc. Once we agree on what we want, we can design those tools.

If we agree on this, what is missing to this frame actually? Nebulas rendering? Wavelenght filtering? What else?

I must admit that the more important thing to do IMHO would be to complete this frame as soon as possible, boost the potential of Celestia at full. Then, once the bases are here, would come the eyecandy works on stars rendering, better nebulas rendering, HDR, etc...

Now if we could have a roadmap for this frame it would be exellent...

[ElChristou]

...While writing this post, I display stars of 16.5th mag (!!) next to big fuzzy 6th mag disks. Looks like I think it should look like...

Picture please!!

[t00fri]

...While writing this post, I display stars of 16.5th mag (!!) next to big fuzzy 6th mag disks. Looks like I think it should look like...

Picture please!!

There is no screendump facility (yet) . Otherwise I had of course done it right away.

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

...
This is my opinion as well . . . There's a lot that Celestia can do that just needs to be exposed through the UI.
...
New grids and scale indicators would help a lot, too.
--Chris

Chris,

sure for now this is a short-time "survival" option. But I am convinced it will not really help in the longer run.

+++++++++++++++++
We do have to add conceptional innovation to the code NOT little convenience patches here and there...
At last, we also should become more systematic in what we address. We need to incorporate bigger things that are not so easily reproduced by MERELY more intensive coding efforts...
+++++++++++++++++

Bye Fridger

Fridger, you know I'm not the best to give an opinion about the code so I won't talk about this but I'd like to recall that if I'm not wrong Celestia is supposed to be a frame for many kind of applications. In this optic, grid system or not is not the problem. IF the frame is large enough to display whatever you want (from mm to billions LY), then the mission is completed. What is missing is a brainstorming on how to deliver to the public such frame, what are the tools for what purpose etc. Once we agree on what we want, we can design those tools.

If we agree on this, what is missing to this frame actually? Nebulas rendering? Wavelenght filtering? What else?

I must admit that the more important thing to do IMHO would be to complete this frame as soon as possible, boost the potential of Celestia at full. Then, once the bases are here, would come the eyecandy works on stars rendering, better nebulas rendering, HDR, etc...

Now if we could have a roadmap for this frame it would be exellent...

Christophe,

I have written already so many roadmaps about a solid framework for cosmology scales that I am just tired to do it once more. We need GENERAL RELATIVITY kinematics to start. We need to define comoving distances and all that. It's all so simple, it's already in my celx scripts. But NOT in celestia, since noone catches on to go really BIG.

Bye Fridger

[ElChristou]

...I have written already so many roadmaps about a solid framework for cosmology scales that I am just tired to do it once more. We need GENERAL RELATIVITY kinematics to start. We need to define comoving distances and all that. It's all so simple, it's already in my celx scripts. But NOT in celestia, since noone catches on to go really BIG...

Ok, then what's the problem? Technical one to achieve this or just a difference of point of view with Chris?
You say it's simple and it's already in your celx scripts; to me that sounds like the so-called general frame is already ready for those features... or am I wrong and you are using a // Celestia build from some dev of yours?

"GENERAL RELATIVITY kinematics", "comoving distances"... seems to me being topics for experts; do we have the necessary background to implement all this? I don't understand why not digging those topics if we knows someone will implement them soon or later... or perhaps Chris is more interested for now in testing some rendering features? Perhaps it's just a question of timing after all...

[hank]

Speaking of Celestia's future... do we have any idea when 1.5.0 will be finalized?

- Hank

[selden]

Speaking of Celestia's future... do we have any idea when 1.5.0 will be finalized?

Nope

If you take a look at Chris' roadmap, you'll see that there are a lot of things that need fixing before he'll be willing to call it finalized.

And it seems he keeps getting distracted by other things ... like the work he gets paid to do so he often has much less time to spend on Celestia than we all might wish.

Of course, if someone with appropriate programming skills were willing to tackle some of the more mundane problems, it might become available that much sooner.

[hank]

Speaking of Celestia's future... do we have any idea when 1.5.0 will be finalized?

Nope :(

If you take a look at Chris' roadmap, you'll see that there are a lot of things that need fixing before he'll be willing to call it finalized.

And it seems he keeps getting distracted by other things ... like the work he gets paid to do :) so he often has much less time to spend on Celestia than we all might wish.

Of course, if someone with appropriate programming skills were willing to tackle some of the more mundane problems, it might become available that much sooner.

We could certainly use more developers. (Any volunteers?) But in the meantime, shouldn't we be concentrating on finalizing 1.5.0? Considering that it's been over a year since the last release, and there are a lot of new features already implemented but not yet released, it seems to me that getting 1.5.0 out as soon as possible ought to be the priority.

- Hank

[dirkpitt]

Comoving distance is a concept that's supposed to take Hubble expansion into account for distances from an observer... am I correct? Right now, Celestia's objects do not recede from each other and Fridger wants that changed I think.