Celestia Development Roadmap

[alecsanpi]

I have a suggestion, but I don't know if it is a complex implementation.

In softwares for Geographic Information Systems, we use the SQL Interface to get many situations, like:

- How many Buildings (or Asteroids) are within a distance of 1200 meters(or UA) from an Object or selection of objects (Earth or Earth and Mars)?

- Which comets will be visible from October to December this Year?

My suggestion!

[selden]

While it's not a data-base language, CELX scripts written in the Lua programming language can be used to query the catalogs that have been loaded into Celestia.

The program "Mostly Harmless," based on an older version of Celestia, does include SQL. It's available at http://mostlyharmless.sourceforge.net/index.htm
Unfortunately, its author has disappeared.

[ElChristou]

Code: Select all

1.5.0pre3
- Don't require LuaHook for scripted orbits and rotations
- Fix cloud shadows
- ASAP

1.5.0pre4
- Changes to standard data files:
  - new Eros model
  - new ISS and Mir models
  - new Itokawa model
- Fix stars
- Allow star orbits to be toggled separately from planet orbits
- Eliminate OrbitBarycenter
- Adjust near clip plane for FOV (to preserve depth buffer precision)
- Don't show labels for star system barycenters
- Fix SSC texture override for meshes

1.5.0 final
- Changes to standard data files:
  - Switch to new rotation model forms
- Atmospheres
  - Make dense atmospheres work better
  - Fix artifacts from linear interpolation across triangles
  - Fix too dark sky at zenith
  - Automatic conversion of new style atmosphere parameters to old ones
- Default body frame is based on parent, not center of orbit frame; is this
  right?
- Fix depth sorting of labels

Curiosity: what points have been completed? (it's not a question to hurry up, it's just curiosity...)

[Larre]

Hello, Everyone!!

I am new at this Celestia thing, and I have learned so much by reading these forums!!

I do have a few suggestions for the future of Celestia:

Please make it so that Celestia can draw stars beyond 16000 Light Years, and if you can, make it possible for 3D Terrain for Planets, if that is not already do-able.

I would really like it if I could create stc and ssc add-ons in other galaxies!

Peace, Larre...

[Paolo]

I do have a few suggestions for the future of Celestia:
Please make it so that Celestia can draw stars beyond 16000 Light Years, and if you can, make it possible for 3D Terrain for Planets, if that is not already do-able.

Yes something like this
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5934024232

[danielj]

In the roadmap,is lacking one important thing:fixing the flickering of most models,specially when placed on surfaces.I had posted this a long time ago,but NO ONE seem to notice...

Code: Select all

1.5.0pre3
- Don't require LuaHook for scripted orbits and rotations
- Fix cloud shadows
- ASAP

1.5.0pre4
- Changes to standard data files:
  - new Eros model
  - new ISS and Mir models
  - new Itokawa model
- Fix stars
- Allow star orbits to be toggled separately from planet orbits
- Eliminate OrbitBarycenter
- Adjust near clip plane for FOV (to preserve depth buffer precision)
- Don't show labels for star system barycenters
- Fix SSC texture override for meshes

1.5.0 final
- Changes to standard data files:
  - Switch to new rotation model forms
- Atmospheres
  - Make dense atmospheres work better
  - Fix artifacts from linear interpolation across triangles
  - Fix too dark sky at zenith
  - Automatic conversion of new style atmosphere parameters to old ones
- Default body frame is based on parent, not center of orbit frame; is this
  right?
- Fix depth sorting of labels

Curiosity: what points have been completed? (it's not a question to hurry up, it's just curiosity...)

[scaddenp]

Yes something like this
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5934024232

But is this real or someone playing with LOD tricks and procedural detail. Celestia isnt a game and I am not sure I like the idea of procedural terrain
in it. Surface to planet LOD control is a major, major project, not off-the-shelf technology unless you are using game-level tricks (eg hide your LOD change
by ducking through cloud or unreal horizons.

[cartrite]

Fridger started a thread at Celestial Matters a while back. http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=116.
The first post has an interesting link about rendering terrains. I'm referring to wscg07-schafhitzel.pdf. Although the beginning of the paper deals with atmospheres, chapter 5 starts talking about "real?" terrain rendering.
cartrite

[Paolo]

Yes something like this
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5934024232

But is this real or someone playing with LOD tricks and procedural detail. Celestia isnt a game and I am not sure I like the idea of procedural terrain
in it. Surface to planet LOD control is a major, major project, not off-the-shelf technology unless you are using game-level tricks (eg hide your LOD change
by ducking through cloud or unreal horizons.

Of course where VT will be available a terrain should have a very high LOD exactly as in google Earth. In other places some kind of procedural detail improvement should be required.

The more I watch that video the more I would like to experience something like that in Celestia. Is addictive.

But this will remain a dream for a very looooong time.

[scaddenp]

But this will remain a dream for a very looooong time.

Yes, I believe so. A 100m grid of 2byte height covering the earth would be
something like 152GB. (Think I have that calculation right). Without
google-type streaming, its tough on disc.

[Fenerit]

Perhaps I'm rested back in Celestia's feature...
Would be possible a .ssc propriety which might hide the right menu's objects title, to say:

Showinmenu false

so that an object couldn't be duplicate or to have multiple voices for the same purpose? In union with the Clickable false propriety seem fine to me.

[duds26]

This is one for the forum, mostly the troubleshooting forum (Celestia Bugs).

Some icon for saying that the problem in the topic is solved would be handy to use in the forum.
Seen that the forum software is very alike, mayby the administrators don't use it.
Something like on this forum: https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewforum.php?f=6

OOoforum_solvedicon.png

[duds26]

Updating Celestia video code for the new ogg codecs, file types and MIME-types.

There is a new naming convention with new file extensions and MIME-types.
There is also a new video-codec possible named Dirac that can compress lossy and lossless.
(And while the Celestia devs are at it, also check if the libraries are the most recent, of course.)

Celestia would be greatly enhanced with these updates/improvements.
https://www.xiph.org/

This is something that is better done sooner rather than later.

[t00fri]

In any case, my theora library under Linux has been automatically updated a few days ago to libtheora-1.0.final. All my celestia versions as of the latest SVN 4538 (kde,gnome, gtk) are now using that theora-1.0final lib without problems.

Fridger

[ElChristou]

As this thread is about the Celestia roadmap, Chris could you do a check of the roadmap in the wikibook? (seems some features are mixed now between the several next version but I'm not that sure.)

About 1.7, what about doing a version only for the QT change + some old time fixing and polishing? Then again we could have a strong basis for the future HDR and others implementation... Opinion?

[duds26]

In any case, my theora library under Linux has been automatically updated a few days ago to libtheora-1.0.final. All my celestia versions as of the latest SVN 4538 (kde,gnome, gtk) are now using that theora-1.0final lib without problems.

Fridger

If you record a video and save it, is it a .ogv file or .ogg file?

[t00fri]

In any case, my theora library under Linux has been automatically updated a few days ago to libtheora-1.0.final. All my celestia versions as of the latest SVN 4538 (kde,gnome, gtk) are now using that theora-1.0final lib without problems.

Fridger

If you record a video and save it, is it a .ogv file or .ogg file?

I have tried .avi, .ogg and .ogv under Celestia-kde. All three work very well. I used vlc 0.94 to play the test videos. I used vlc on my Windows machine, actually.

Fridger

[duds26]

What's file extension that you get when recording with default settings, an ogg or an ogv file?

The ogv should be used instead of ogg.
(if it's not ogv it should be set on ogv)

It's the preferred container, file extension.
AVI should from now on be abandoned in favor of ogg container (ogv, oga and ogx) or matroska, MP4.

[t00fri]

What's file extension that you get when recording with default settings, an ogg or an ogv file?

The ogv should be used instead of ogg.
(if it's not ogv it should be set on ogv)

It's the preferred container, file extension.
AVI should from now on be abandoned in favor of ogg container (ogv, oga and ogx) or matroska, MP4.

There is NO default extension in Celestia-kde.
If I write test then the file named test will be saved.


So far I avoided these formats when preparing a video since my Windows friends with their installed Media Player simply were unable to play these formats/codecs. There is no point in talking about all this if people are not willing to install at least a player that is capable of playing these formats.

I want to reach people if I am undergoing all the work of making a video.
Sometimes the inertia on can observe is "breathtaking" ...

Fridger

[duds26]

Yes, people are very afraid of trying something new .
People that don't know a lot of computers are very fragile.

My Windows Friends can't play ogg files also.
(So I end up with a wmv version of the video.)


That makes me wondering about something on the Xiph wiki.
There was a project that was about making direcshow filters for ogg.

(Hopefully it will become easier to move our friends with that,
than with trying them to try a new media player.)
(Hopefully their inertia will be small enough for this change. )

But it will take some time to have those filters matured and stable enough for everybody to enjoy.
There isn't much software with the stable library, the current software isn't working stable and reliable yet.
Noticed when I tried to compare different codecs. The creation of ogg files was very unreliable.