Dear core team, I finally found some time again to work on extinction, please see my extinction branch, based on trunk 4970.
Currently it works for all point-like sources (stars (I finally got it!), planet "halos", satellites, minor planets, comets. Those are dimmed (getVmagnitude()), and I also changed the infostrings accordingly. I propose a different solution for the magnitudes of the planets, and implemented the ring dependency of Saturn's brightness. I also changed skyDrawer so that light pollution is switched off (BortleIndex=1) if atmosphere is off. What is missing: extinction for extended objects: Milky Way and nebula images. This requires OpenGL knowledge surpassing mine. I think that the vertex array in MilkyWay needs vertex colors which can then be dimmed one-by-one by extinction. I assume this comes too late for 0.11.1, but maybe one of you with better knowledge of the internals of those classes can put some effort in MilkyWay and StelSkyLayerMgr to complete this task? In September, I attended the SEAC conference, and can report that Stellarium is in use by many researchers in the field of ethnoastronomy, given especially the nice skyculture features. On the other hand, others are concerned about computational accuracy, see below. From the field of education, Rosa Doran of the "Global Hands-on Universe" (http://www.globalhou.net) and the Galileo Teacher Training Program told me how many teachers with thousands of pupils she introduced to astronomy using Stellarium, so it's an important educational tool, and she wants to express her gratitude to the team (YOU :-) which I am happy to deliver. My other branch is the scenery3d walkthrough plugin, which was quite successfully demonstrated at SEAC. This undergoes further improvements by a student until January, then I would like to contribute it to the project. For optimal integration I have a few questions: Where in the branch shall I put plugin data files, i.e. some demo sceneries? I know plugin data files in the final application should go into <USER_DATA>/modules/scenery3d/<scene_name>. There is however currently no directory <BZRbranch>/modules/<plugin_name> in the project structure, the other plugins just create new files in the user's <USER_DATA>/modules/<plugin_name>. For walkaround with keyboard controls, I had to modify StelMovementMgr::getCallOrder(), thereby breaking the pure "plugin" concept. However, I feel that plugins should be allowed keyboard interaction intercepting the main application. A few months ago, there was discussion on the list on the buttons behaviour of plugins. Has there been a decision/solution yet? It would be helpful to have a right-click behaviour like "open config panel" - currently I must use 2 buttons. The PDF manual is somewhat outdated (10.2). Is there documentation on the scripting language? The files on sourceforge SVN are about 3 years old. Where are the (Are there?) current LaTeX/LyX files, maybe I can add some details on landscapes, refraction, extinction and scenery3d. The LaTeX sources could be likewise developed on the BZR. I think, one complete, up-to-date english manual should always be available, and new visible features could be easily added by the respective author if this manual was also on BZR. Some time ago I had understood Stellarium moved from Sourceforge to Launchpad. Now I understood something is still kept at Sourceforge. What is the reason for the dichotomy BZR/SVN? Stellarium has high potential as education tool, and I think the scenery3D plugin is opening new possibilities for archaeoastronomy. For the latter, however, astronomical accuracy need to be improved for times long gone. I hope I can contribute something more in this field. Generally however, some source files need better documentation of algorithms and data sources (papers, books?). If you know more than is currently available, please consider improving documentation to help contributors. On Launchpad, most branches are in state of "Development". However, many of the branches have no description, and some seem to be dead. Consider marking "Abandon" for those, "Mature" for the ready-to-merge ones, and "Merged" for, well, merged ones without further use. The description can include a description of current state. Of course, only the branch owners should do that. Finally, is there a repository or website for uploading contributed sky cultures, similar to the landscape collection? I currently can only provide "Western" variants. For now, I have processed the built-in ones into outlines (simply Sobel filtered, but I prefer those over "thick" paintings), but I have long ago started work on others which may at some time be ready. Kind regards, Georg -- Georg Zotti Archaeoastronomy / ASTROSIM VIAS-Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science University of Vienna ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The demand for IT networking professionals continues to grow, and the demand for specialized networking skills is growing even more rapidly. Take a complimentary Learning@Ciosco Self-Assessment and learn about Cisco certifications, training, and career opportunities. http://p.sf.net/sfu/cisco-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Stellarium-pubdevel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stellarium-pubdevel
