xplanet-development

Re: [Xplanet-development] Making maps

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

Xplanet requires maps in a simple rectangular
projection.  The top left corner should be lat 90, lon
-180, and the bottom right corner should be lat -90,
lon 180.  Just use linear interpolation to convert
pixel values to lat/lon and vice versa.

For maps of a smaller geographical area, read the
mapbounds entry in README.config.

Hari

[Xplanet-development] Making maps

[Svend H. <sh...@cy...>]

I am interested in learning how to make maps for xplanet.

The problem is that I have 4 million markers I want to show on the map.

So my idea is to color a pixel on the map for each marker point.

But since I have so many points, why not make a maker-map and then merge
it 
with a earth map to get a final map. Using something like 
xplanet -image day.jpg -cloud_image maker.jpg -shade 100 -output
day-maker.jpg -geometry widthxheight

But how do I build the maker-map ?
As I see it. I have to have a formula that can map a 
(latitude,longitude) to a (x,y) pixel coordinate.  

Do there exist any software that can make it easy for me ?

What information or code should I read ?

The map at http://www.geourl.org/ is similar to what I want to make.

Re: [Xplanet-development] [OT] Tracking of Spacecraft Orbiting Mars ?

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

Hi Iain - I'm not aware of any such thing.  Your best
bet is to look at the web sites for each particular
mission and see if they have something there.

I'll look too, but if you find anything please let me
know.  I would love to have this capability.

Hari

[Xplanet-development] [OT] Tracking of Spacecraft Orbiting Mars ?

[<g7...@g7...>]

Hi All,

First, Apologies, this is slightly off topic, but still related
to xplanet.

I'm trying to find a programme | script | website that outputs
Longitude, Latitude, and Range for Mars orbiting spacecraft, that
I can then use with xplanet markers etc.

I tried JPL's Horizon programme (http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.html),
but it seems it doesn't have Ephemerides for orbiting craft, only
those in transit.

(Or at least I tried Mars Express, and its Ephemerides went to
Dec 24th, Mars Odyssey also didn't have current Ephemerides either,
yet Cassini did)


Anyone know of any way to get the data I want in a reasonably 
real-time manner ?


Best Regards

Iain

Re: [Xplanet-development] Problem using -dynamic_origin option

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

Hi Andreas:

> xplanet.exe -label -target earth -dynamic_origin
> test.txt -num_times 1

The position specified in the dynamic_origin file is
relative to the origin.  By default, the origin is the
Sun.  So your command would view the earth from
various locations around the Sun.

> The text.txt document contains one line:
>
> 20031228.114800 4 -174.3 80.7

The order should be
YYYYMMDD.HHMMSS Radius Lat Lon

Switch the order in test.txt, and then try this:
xplanet.exe -label -target earth -dynamic_origin
test.txt -num_times 1 -origin earth

I see why this is not obvious at all ... I'll update
the documentation.

Happy New Year to all,

Hari

[Xplanet-development] Problem using -dynamic_origin option

[Andreas W. <in...@hu...>]

Hello,

I'm trying to use the -dynamic_origin option to place the point of view to
predefined locations.

I start xplanet 1.0.2 using the following parameters:

xplanet.exe -label -target earth -dynamic_origin test.txt -num_times 1

The text.txt document contains one line:

20031228.114800 4 -174.3 80.7

The created pictures label says that the obs (Observer?) position is 23.3S
and 12.8W. When I change the two last values of the text.txt document, the
observer position changes slightly, but I'm not able to see any correlation
between the position in the dynamic_origin file and the position printed on
the label.

Can someone please help me with that?

Thanks a lot for your efforts and have a happy new year!

Regards,
   Andreas

[Xplanet-development] Xplanet 1.0.2 is out

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

The new version is available at
http://xplanet.sourceforge.net

There are just a bunch of changes that have accumulated
over the past nine months.  The major ones are:
* Xplanet can now use JPL digital ephemeris files for
much better accuracy.
* A new projection (Lambert Cylindrical Equal Area).
* Markers can be drawn using Pango for international
language support.
* Markers and arcs can be drawn on the abckground star
field.  A constellation arc file is included, as is a
marker file containing the names of the brighter
stars.

We've got a baby due in a month ... I figured I'd
better get this out sooner rather than later!

Hari

Re: [Xplanet-development] Re: Let's talk about Xplanet 1.0.1

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

Quoting Douglas Bollinger <dc...@sd...>:

> Ok, the way I'm using the "orbit" command is
> like this:
> 
> -orbit 6:0
> 
> Which simply spins the globe at 6 time the
> normal rate so I can get a view
> of the world-wide weather patterns doing one
> session.  Will I be able to
> easily do this with the new command?

You'll have to write another small script or
program to compute the position of the observer
before each rendering and write that into a file.

I haven't done much work on xplanet in the last
six months and I'm only now getting back to it. 
It will probably be a while until I get another
version out.

Hari

[Xplanet-development] Re: Let's talk about Xplanet 1.0.1

[Douglas B. <dc...@sd...>]

Sorry it took awhile for me to respond, apparently my internet provider's
email server randomly drops incoming mail over the weekend.  Neat feature.
Luckily I checked sourceforge's mailing list archives.  Anyway...

>I am going to add an option called -dynamic_origin, where you can specify
>a file with one position in it (radius, lat, lon), and will read this file
>and place the observer there before each rendering.  You will be able to
>update the dynamic origin file using the -pre and -post command options.

Ok, the way I'm using the "orbit" command is like this:

-orbit 6:0

Which simply spins the globe at 6 time the normal rate so I can get a view
of the world-wide weather patterns doing one session.  Will I be able to
easily do this with the new command?

>Try looking at http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr, which has a lot of astronomical
>data.  It's a little difficult to navigate, but there are a number of star
>catalogs available.  You will just need to create a new file from these
>databases with the proper format for xplanet (magnitude, RA, Dec).
> 
>Alternatively, just try displaying the earth with a smaller value for
> -range.

I'm having trouble pulling-up the website you mentioned.  I've played with
using the -range value to see more stars and it does work.  Unfortunately,
at very low values where you see many stars (like 5), the earth looks a bit
distorted.

With the celestia program I have a few more star maps.  I'm going to see if
I can whip-up some Perl and convert one of them for use with xplanet.

-- 
Murphy's Law of Research:
	Enough research will tend to support your theory.

Re: [Xplanet-development] Let's talk about Xplanet 1.0.1

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

Quoting Douglas Bollinger <dc...@sd...>:

> I've been playing with Xplanet 1.0.1 for a bit
> and have a few questions.
> 
> (1) Any chance the orbit feature will come
> back?  I really miss that as I like to see the
> Earth make a spin while I'm at my computer.

It won't be implemented the same way it used to
be, which was very limited.  You can use the
-origin_file option.  The disadvantage here is
that you have to specify the whole orbit ahead of
time and it won't run indefinitely.  

I am going to add an option called
-dynamic_origin, where you can specify a file with
one position in it (radius, lat, lon), and will
read this file and place the observer there before
each rendering.  You will be able to update the
dynamic origin file using the -pre and -post
command options.
 
> (2) Does anyone have a bigger star file that
> will work well with xplanet?
> I appreciate that the stars are now accurate,
> but it looks rather barren around the Earth
> with the current star file.

Try looking at http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr, which 
has a lot of astronomical data.  It's a little
difficult to navigate, but there are a number of
star catalogs available.  You will just need to
create a new file from these databases with the
proper format for xplanet (magnitude, RA, Dec).

Alternatively, just try displaying the earth with
a smaller value for -range.

Hari

[Xplanet-development] Let's talk about Xplanet 1.0.1

[Douglas B. <dc...@sd...>]

I've been using Xplanet 0.94 to draw my background image for quite awhile
now.  It certainly makes an impressive view and impresses the non-techies
when I tell them that the clouds are accurate, etc.

I've been playing with Xplanet 1.0.1 for a bit and have a few questions.

(1) Any chance the orbit feature will come back?  I really miss that as I
like to see the Earth make a spin while I'm at my computer.

(2) Does anyone have a bigger star file that will work well with xplanet?
I appreciate that the stars are now accurate, but it looks rather barren
around the Earth with the current star file.

-- 
"Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.  "Begin at the beginning,"
the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Re: [Xplanet-development] Strange observation

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

In your config file, you have 
satellite_file=nasa
under [default]

Anything in the [default] section applies to each
of the 30+ bodies xplanet knows about.  If you
move the satellite_file entry under the [earth]
section the memory usage is much smaller.

I've put a check in the code now to ensure
artificial satellites are only drawn for earth,
but that will probably be removed someday when
there's an easy way to plot artificial satellites
around the other planets.

Hari

Re: [Xplanet-development] Strange observation

[Luc L. <lx...@gm...>]

I tried another thing. In my file here the satellites are defined, I added an 
'spacing=10' to every line, and it no longer needs that much Memory.

Luc

Re: [Xplanet-development] Strange observation

[Luc L. <lx...@gm...>]

Hello Hari,

I have attached the relevent files. If I comment out the satfile line in the 
config file, everything seems ok. If the line is in, I have the Problem...

Thanks, Luc


On Sunday 18 May 2003 01:33, Hari Nair wrote:
> Hi Luc - can you send me the relevant files for
> your setup so that I can reproduce this?  I only
> display the ISS and Hubble and don't see much
> memory usage.
>
> Hari

Re: [Xplanet-development] Strange observation

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

Hi Luc - can you send me the relevant files for
your setup so that I can reproduce this?  I only
display the ISS and Hubble and don't see much
memory usage.

Hari

Quoting Luc Langehegermann <lx...@gm...>:

> Hello,
> 
> I have been playing a bit around with xplanet
> to track satellites, and found
> that it uses quite a lot of RAM (actually my
> 256MByte machine swaps) if I
> display the satellites.
> 
> Without them all seems ok. Hmm... any Idea?
> 
> top tells my with satellite tracking that it
> uses around 80% of my RAM,
> without them around 15%... a bit strange...
> 
> Thanks, Luc

[Xplanet-development] Strange observation

[Luc L. <lx...@gm...>]

Hello,

I have been playing a bit around with xplanet to track satellites, and found 
that it uses quite a lot of RAM (actually my 256MByte machine swaps) if I 
display the satellites.

Without them all seems ok. Hmm... any Idea?

top tells my with satellite tracking that it uses around 80% of my RAM, 
without them around 15%... a bit strange...

Thanks, Luc

Re: [Xplanet-development] [Fwd: Running XPlanet on W2K]

[Robin Y. M. <mil...@wa...>]

Nigel Stewart wrote:

>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Running XPlanet on W2K
> Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 18:03:11 +0200
> From: Lausenaz, Olivier <oli...@bp...>
> To: 'ni...@ni...' <ni...@ni...>
>
> So now, I am running Xplanet on Win2000 and your new version 1.0.1 is
> running fine
> except that I can see the earth map only when I press CTRL+ALT+DEL and 
> when
> I lock my screen !!!
> Do you have a solution ?
> Anyway, Thank you for the conversion from Linux to Win


My guess is you are using active desktop. If you don't need it, simply 
disabling it should resolve your problem.

[Xplanet-development] [Fwd: Running XPlanet on W2K]

[Nigel S. <ni...@ni...>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Running XPlanet on W2K
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 18:03:11 +0200
From: Lausenaz, Olivier <oli...@bp...>
To: 'ni...@ni...' <ni...@ni...>

Since I saw Xplanet running on a Linux computer, I want it to run on my Win.

So I went on your site and found the Win version you created.

So now, I am running Xplanet on Win2000 and your new version 1.0.1 is
running fine
except that I can see the earth map only when I press CTRL+ALT+DEL and when
I lock my screen !!!
Do you have a solution ?
Anyway, Thank you for the conversion from Linux to Win

Re: [Xplanet-development] Opinions and feature requests to 1.*

[Stephan S. <nur...@gm...>]

Hi!

Funny, your response was much faster than the return of my mail via
the list.

On Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 09:57:03AM -0800, Hari Nair wrote:
> > Now I'm only missing a few features like
> > - A config variable in the global section where I can add the maps
> > I like to see (e.g.  swap_through_section=3Dearth,earth1,mars,luna)
> > and a time variable (e.g. swap_after_seconds=3D120), so after 120
> > seconds the next map would be displayed, and I could view
> > different planets or different markers for the planet with
> > automatic rotation.
> This sounds like it would be a book-keeping
> headache.  Why not use the -pre/-post command
> options to set links to the image files you want?

I'm not sure that this will work. If you wish to change between a
saturn image and an earth image together with different marker files
(maybe one with places, one with weather data and earthquake data),
the scripts in the pre/post command had to run the whole time in the
background waiting for there time to change links.
And you had to copy all global images to your home directory, because
you can't link in /usr/share as user.

> > - The projection option should be available in
> > the config files, too.
> The purpose of the config file is to specify
> options that can vary from planet to planet.  The
> projection is a property of the whole image, not
> of any one planet, which is why it needs to be
> specified on the command line.

It makes sense together with my feature wish above, because then you
could change the projection for different maps, when xplanet switches
between them (e.g. saturn as seen from above and earth with
rectangular projection).

> > - The lines in the marker file should have the possibility to have
> > more than one align command (e.g. align=3Dabove{Algiers,
> > color=3Dcoral3}, align=3Dbelow{%H:%M %Z, color=3DDarkGoldenrod}).
> Why not specify the marker twice?=20

Yes, this works, too. So you can skip my last wish. ;-)

Shade and sweet water!

	Stephan

--=20
| Stephan Seitz                   E-Mail: Nur...@gm... |
|          WWW: http://fsing.fs.uni-sb.de/~stse/            |
| PGP Public Keys: http://fsing.fs.uni-sb.de/~stse/pgp.html |

Re: [Xplanet-development] Opinions and feature requests to 1.*

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

Quoting Stephan Seitz <nur...@gm...>:

> Now I'm only missing a few features like
> - A config variable in the global section where
> I can add the maps I like
>   to see (e.g.
> swap_through_section=earth,earth1,mars,luna)
> and a time
>   variable (e.g. swap_after_seconds=120), so
> after 120 seconds the next
>   map would be displayed, and I could view
> different planets or different
>   markers for the planet with automatic
> rotation.

This sounds like it would be a book-keeping
headache.  Why not use the -pre/-post command
options to set links to the image files you want?

> - The projection option should be available in
> the config files, too.

The purpose of the config file is to specify
options that can vary from planet to planet.  The
projection is a property of the whole image, not
of any one planet, which is why it needs to be
specified on the command line.

> - The lines in the marker file should have the
> possibility to have more
>   than one align command (e.g.
> align=above{Algiers, color=coral3},
>   align=below{%H:%M %Z, color=DarkGoldenrod}).

Why not specify the marker twice? 

[Xplanet-development] Opinions and feature requests to 1.*

[Stephan S. <nur...@gm...>]

Hi!

Now, finally, I had the time to upgrade my xplanet version to 1.x. I had
to completly change my scripts, but in the end I have now a working
version. Thanks, Hari, for your good work!

Two things I noticed:
- The new earth map is now darker than the old map, especially the green
  colour.
- I had to convert the markers file to utf-8. Maybe this should be noted
  in the README. After I changed the standard font to Arial Unicode, even
  Kanji displayed correctly.
  Does anybody know a source where I can find the city names in the
  language of the country? I need Russian, Chinese names (and others)
  from certain places.

Now I'm only missing a few features like
- A config variable in the global section where I can add the maps I like
  to see (e.g. swap_through_section=3Dearth,earth1,mars,luna) and a time
  variable (e.g. swap_after_seconds=3D120), so after 120 seconds the next
  map would be displayed, and I could view different planets or different
  markers for the planet with automatic rotation.
- The projection option should be available in the config files, too.
- The lines in the marker file should have the possibility to have more
  than one align command (e.g. align=3Dabove{Algiers, color=3Dcoral3},
  align=3Dbelow{%H:%M %Z, color=3DDarkGoldenrod}).

Shade and sweet water!

	Stephan

--=20
| Stephan Seitz                   E-Mail: Nur...@gm... |
|          WWW: http://fsing.fs.uni-sb.de/~stse/            |
| PGP Public Keys: http://fsing.fs.uni-sb.de/~stse/pgp.html |

Re: [Xplanet-development] Bug in 1.0.1

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

It's a divide by zero error in ProjectionAncient.
I've attached a patch.

How's that for response time? :)

[Xplanet-development] Bug in 1.0.1

[Richard R. <rro...@ga...>]

xplanet -proj an --lat 1 -lon -1

works

xplanet -proj an=20

fails.

gdb ./xplanet
GNU gdb Red Hat Linux (5.2-2)
Copyright 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you =
are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditi=
ons.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for detail=
s.
This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
(gdb) run --proj an
Starting program: /tmp/xplanet-1.0.1/src/xplanet --proj an
Warning: Warning: resizing night map
For better performance, all image maps should be the same size as the day=
 map

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
DisplayBase::setPixel (this=3D0x8145408, X=3D-nan(0x8000000000000),=20
    Y=3D-nan(0x8000000000000), color=3D0x8136088 "=FF=FF=FF") at DisplayB=
ase.cpp:786
    786             if (sum + rgb_data[istart + j] > 255)
    (gdb) where
#0  DisplayBase::setPixel (this=3D0x8145408, X=3D-nan(0x8000000000000),=20
        Y=3D-nan(0x8000000000000), color=3D0x8136088 "=FF=FF=FF") at Disp=
layBase.cpp:786
#1  0x08063d76 in drawProjection (display=3D0x8145408, target=3D0x8153dd8=
,=20
            planetsFromSunMap=3D@0xbffff020, planetProperties=3D0x8136048=
)
    at drawProjection.cpp:181
#2  0x0806ffdb in xplanet_main (argc=3D3, argv=3D0xbffff174)
        at libplanet/Planet.h:34
#3  0x080710fd in main (argc=3D3, argv=3D0xbffff174) at xplanet.cpp:213
#4  0x42017589 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/i686/libc.so.6


it appears to be something in drawProjection not checking that the
X/Y coordinates are not "valid" (they're both NAN)


--=20
 /  \__  | Richard Rognlie / Sendmail Ninja / Gamerz.NET Lackey
 \__/  \ | http://www.gamerz.net/rrognlie/    <rro...@ga...>
 /  \__/ | Today is the first day of the rest of your life.  Of course,
 \__/    |    so was yesterday, and look how you screwed *that* up...

[Xplanet-development] xplanet 1.0.1 released

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

This version has native Aqua support and minor
bugfixes from the 1.0.0 version.

[Xplanet-development] xplanet-1.0.0 released

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

The beta is now version 1.0.0.