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snapshot2.png (611,018 bytes) |
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No there is no picture at the moment. Maybe I can add one for the four big satellites of Jupiter? Or use another way to plot a more realistic gray dot? Anyway detailed planetary satellite rendering and analysis is planned in Virtual Planet Atlas. |
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Yes, adding textures for several major satellites of Jupiter may be interesting for start. Textures does not have to be large at all. More realistic drawing of parametric representation (shadow) is not necessary. Actually, decision and priority is on you, if you have already planned to implement similar in other related project. Thanks. |
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Maybe I'm wrong but I think Xplanet supports also satellites rendering. From xplanet homepage: "All of the major planets and most satellites can be drawn". |
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Yes Xplanet can render the satellites images. This is more a problem for the performance if we need to make images for many object on the same map. I prefer to not do that right now because I want to release a stable version soon (3.10 is almost two years old). For this version I update the map of Pluto with the New Horizons picture: http://sourceforge.net/p/skychart/code/3221/ |
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Patrick, how many objects can be expected to be drawn with in very vicinity of the planet or satellite (as background)? I have not looked in the calculation and drawing routines, however rendering could be triggered only in vicinity of the object (distance far from Earth). I'm almost certain that is how it works with drawing for planets. As well, with very low FOV value, not much can be seen except planet and it's moons and background stars. Drawing rendered texture is very fast with GR32 (normal blending), however I do not know for bgrabitmap. Optionally, a checkbox "Realistic draw of planet's satellites" (or similar) can exists. I'm using relatively slow hardware and CDC with full DSO data and find that CDC works quite fast, which means it is quite well optimized already. |
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I have looked now textures for Solar system. They are quite large. Sun 1024x1024 and 1024x512. Mars, Jupiter and most of them 1024x512, while rest outer smaller planets 512x512 or less Moon 2048x1024. Big task for Xplanet to always scale and render accordingly... If not already done, may I suggest to create several smaller versions of textures for each planet and Moon (+ future satellites) according to several resolutions and use it accordingly due rendering? This way time for all scaling and rendering tasks would be dramatically shorten. The 1024x768 screen resolution is fine for 17-22" monitors (for me personally at least), thus expected visual representation of Jupiter (for instance) with FOV of 1 deg is 50 or so pixels, however time to display is 4x of time to display for FOV of 2 deg (does not use rendering at all). More closer to the object, larger textures are used and more time is required for rendering... For higher resolution (up to 1680x1050), that is similar. Etc, more connected monitors (dual, quad) and more resolutions require more CPU and FPU power and more time... Etc... I hope I did not suggested something already implemented... |
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This as well could be moved to 4.0 as suggested functionality is already implemented in "Solar system info" and as such trivial to replace old xplanet call. |
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This one is also fixed by today change for 0001506 |
- Anonymous
