Asteroid request: Version 1.4.1

[srosenow_98]

Hello,

This is my first post, and I hope I've placed it in the right forum.

I was downloading some add-on files for Celestia today and decided I'd enrich the emptiness inbetween Mars and Jupiter with the asteroid field available from the Motherlode. After downloading it, I followed the unzip and install directions and immediately ran into a problem.

When the splash screen would load at the beginning, Celestia would freeze and become unresponsive when trying to load the *SSC file for the asteroid field I'd just installed.

I have a pretty stout system and Celestia just stalls when it tries to load that file.

Is there a way, possibly, to break up that single file into a bunch of smaller ones? I've tried doing that using Microsoft Word and it freezes trying to process 8,000+ pages.

Any help would be appreciated.

-Steve

[piellepi]

Hi!
I think that the first option to follow is NOT to use Word for simple text files like .ssc ones.
I suggest you to use Write at first and then one of the simple editing programs you can find for free in internet.
Word manipulates heavily text files and it's impossible to handle them.
Ciao
Pierluigi

[srosenow_98]

I even tried Notepad and WordPad to split it up, and it wouldn't work. Wordpad froze totally, and Notepad gives me a warning saying that the file is too large to open.

[ANDREA]

Hello, I've tried doing that using Microsoft Word and it freezes trying to process 8,000+ pages. Any help would be appreciated. -Steve

Hello Steve, I hed the same problem years ago, and someone gave me the solution.
He suggested me a freeware named Wed-9, able to open any size of plain text files.
I just made a search in the Web, uselessly, so I provided to upload it for you here (it's very small, about 1.2 Mb):
http://ftp.tiscali.it/andrea_celestia/Wed-9.zip
Enjoy!
Bye

Andrea

[mjoubert]

Steve,

I just warn you about SSC files size : even the biggest one shouldn't freeze notepad, so be sure you're trying to open that kind of file.

And please give a link to this add-on.

Mathieu

[selden]

Mathieu,

It isn't that Notepad or Word or Wordpad freeze permanently, it's just that they take far longer than anyone is willing to wait.

I use emacs: it loads large files quickly. It's free, opensource Gnu software, but may be more complicated than you want.

[edit]The large asteroid Addon is available on the Motherlode at http://celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/asteroids.php
[/edit]

[mjoubert]

Selden,

I was thinkink that ssc file were quite small and I just discovered the 5M lines long ssc file containing asteroids.

So please forget what I said...

[t00fri]

My God....

This is a 1 line job for PERL (that should be installed on EVERY computer, irrespective of its operating system! ).

In case of asteroids, one just would tag the magnitude line or the size or the albedo, whatever is convenient. Then one only retains asteroids where the tagged variable exceeds a certain threshold.

For large text files one would always use a "streaming editor", like the standard UNIX tools: sed ='streaming editor', awk/gawk and of course PERL. Streaming editors edit the file while it streams line-by-line through it's filter. PERL is by far the most versatile such tool and of course exists in any operating system. Programming PERL is REALLY easy.

An equivalent approach would be exploiting the ability of certain editors to do replacements based on socalled "regular expressions". Xemacs is a well-known example. Just 1 statement. Not more.

If someone shows me the specific format for one asteroid, I can certainly produce the required 1 line PERL script in no time...

Actually, one should always use the LATEST data from the well-known scientific asteroid data base, since the orbit elements change with time...


Bye Fridger