{"id":2533,"date":"2018-05-21T11:00:33","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T11:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceengine.org\/?p=2533"},"modified":"2019-06-06T21:19:27","modified_gmt":"2019-06-06T21:19:27","slug":"constellations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/news\/blog180521\/","title":{"rendered":"Constellations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introducing a new feature, which SpaceEngine needed for a long time - constellations! They were implemented with collaboration with ESO ePOD - European Southern Observatory's Education and Public Outreach department. Special thanks to Nico Bartman.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Features:<\/p>\n

  • Displaying of lines, boundaries and labels (names) for all 88 + 1 constellations (Serpens is actually split in two - Head and Tail)<\/li>\n
  • GUI elements to show\/hide lines, boundaries and labels - in the Filters settings menu and on the right-side toolbar<\/li>\n
  • Script commands to show\/hide lines, boundaries and labels - works the same as GUI elements<\/li>\n
  • Script commands to show\/hide lines, boundaries and labels for each individual constellation (it is 89 * 3 separate commands), and for zodiacal ones<\/li>\n
  • Ability to select constellation in the F3 search tool (although it is not displayed in the list), then Center and Goto can be used on constellation<\/li>\n
  • Info table shows some information about the selected constellation. for now it is just a full name, but it is possible to add some interesting stats (like number of stars visible by naked eye, surface area etc)<\/li>\n
  • Constellation boundaries are rendered in two ways - at infinity, like the celestial grid, and as a sphere of a certain radius. Script commands and config file parameters to change the mode and sphere radius were added<\/li>\n
  • Constellation names are localized<\/li>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    What is planned to do (roughly in priority order):<\/p>\n

  • Change lines and boundaries rendering to new volumetric lines, like used for orbits (see below)<\/li>\n
  • Make some small indent between stars and ends of constellation lines<\/li>\n
  • Change labels to a 3D billboards or curved \"textures\", rendered on the surface of the boundary lines sphere (this is necessary for fulldome and VR, and can be used further for geographical labels on planets)<\/li>\n
  • Script commands and config file parameter to control colors of lines, boundaries and labels, per constellation<\/li>\n
  • Add constellations descriptions to Wiki<\/li>\n
  • Support of alternate shapes (for example, Ursa Major - the Big Dipper only)<\/li>\n
  • Support of asterisms - not a conventional constellations, but a famous star patterns (for example, the \"Summer triangle\")<\/li>\n
  • Constellations art (drawings)<\/li>\n
  • Support of constellations of various cultures, like in Stellarium (Chinese, Mayan etc)<\/li>\n
  • Support of custom constellations for mods (for some sci-fi worlds)<\/li>\n
    \"\"<\/a>

    From Alpha Centauri, Sirius appears near Betelgeuse<\/p><\/div>\n

    Another work made during the past month:<\/p>\n

  • New orbital lines rendering, settings menu have options to control thickness of lines for major and minor bodies separately<\/li>\n
  • Graphics settings menu have options to set up warp and reflection textures resolution, fish eye and 360\u00b0 render buffer resolution<\/li>\n
  • Script command to switch the audio output device, automatic redirecting audio to Oculus Rift headphones<\/li>\n
  • Command line argument to launch SE in a specified 3D\/VR mode (for Steam launch options)<\/li>\n
  • Added ability to use super-resolution in VR (rendering at a pixel density greater than 1)<\/li>\n
  • Ability to change keys, mouse and joysticks bindings by scripts<\/li>\n
  • Support of importing obj saved in 'quads' (no need to convert to 'triangles' anymore)<\/li>\n
  • Ability to create a custom menu with script-running buttons (a step towards professional planetarium version, together with constellations)<\/li>\n
  • Added more error checks for star catalogs loading<\/li>\n
  • Many VR-related changes<\/li>\n
  • Many new script commands and improvements of existing ones (the animation in video for this post is made using a single SE script)<\/li>\n
  • Ability to change position of labels near planetary and deep space objects (stars, galaxies)<\/li>\n
  • Fixed a dark spot bug in the atmosphere in center of a day hemisphere of a planet<\/li>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Discuss this post on the forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Introducing a new feature, which SpaceEngine needed for a long time - constellations! They were implemented with collaboration with ESO ePOD - European Southern Observatory's Education and Public Outreach department. Special thanks to Nico Bartman. Features: Displaying of lines, boundaries and labels (names) for all...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceengine.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}