OHM Videnie orbit drawing 1.0

[OrbitHangar]

Author: artlav

Videnie is a trajectory drawing module for Orbiter.
It renders vessel and planet trajectories straight into the main screen.
Allows you to see where you go, in real time.
Allows you to pan around the neighbourhood.

Limitations:
-Only two-body elements are considered
-Close-up the lines might look garbled

Changes for 110912::
-Fixed misalignment in projection (labels perfectly correspond to objects now)
-Added panning toggle (use left button instead of mouse wheel)



DOWNLOAD

 

[Artlav]

This is a proof-of-concept trajectory rendering module for Orbiter.
Latest is 110912, info in post 73, same OH link

It draws the orbits right where you're flying.

You can see trajectories of moons too:

If you, a newbie, launch straight up, the trajectory drawn should give you a clue you're doing it wrong:

So far it's quite limited, so ideas are welcome.
What could be made out of it?
What would you like to see in it?

Latest:
Interplanetary trip:

Near Saturn:

Pan to look where you go:

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

Excellent! I've been waiting for something like this for a pretty long time.

Obvious suggestion first: Making it so planets "block" the parts of the orbit obscured by that planet.

2. Adjusting the distance at which the orbits disappear.
3. Showing orbits for planets orbiting the sun (or other star)
4. Being able to hide the message with in the upper left corner.

 

[Izack]

Excellent! I've been waiting for something like this for a pretty long time.

Obvious suggestion first: Making it so planets "block" the parts of the orbit obscured by that planet.

2. Adjusting the distance at which the orbits disappear.
3. Showing orbits for planets orbiting the sun (or other star)
4. Being able to hide the message with in the upper left corner.

Hey, I was going to say that! :lol:

Fantastic addition, Artlav. I'll try it out more fully when I get home.

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

This should prove useful for landing at bases

 

[BrianJ]

Wow! Many thanks, Artlav !!

Works well here, on Windows XP, nVidia Geforce card. Didn't notice any drop in fps.

Is it possible to increase the cut-off range (where the orbits are no longer rendered)? Using a vessel in eccentric Earth orbit (250km x 410,000km) it would be nice to be able to zoom out to, say, 1,000,000km to see the entire vessel orbit relative to the Moon's orbit. As it is, I can't zoom out more than 150,000km before the orbits are not rendered. That is not far enough to get the entire picture of vessel orbit + moon orbit in frame (even at big FOV).

Of course, I don't know how the cut-off distance is calculated, but I would suggest some logic like "do not render orbit if semi-major axis is less than 10 pixels on screen" or something like that.

Also, an option to enable planet orbits (not just moons) would be good.
(I assume it's not enabled at the moment - I don't see any orbits for Venus, Earth, Mars, etc etc.)

One very small niggle - the orbits are rendered on top of MFD's in internal (generic cockpit) view - but that's really not a problem.

Very good! Thank you! :tiphat:

Regards,
Brian

EDIT: Oh! IgnoreThisBarrel and Izaack got there first

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

Now that I think of it programming logic for orbit viewpoint-cutoff (or whatever the heck it's called) is a great idea! Maybe a configurable option for that

 

[Moach]

AWESOME!!!!!! :10sign::11sign::woohoo:


OMG! this is EXACTLY what i had in mind a few weeks back! i remember talking to Jedediah about a trajectory visualization scheme - and you downright hit that nail right in the head!

 

[n72.75]

This is really cool!

The one suggestion I have is trajectory plotting for 'n' planets.
But I suspect that you are already working on this.

 

[fireballs619]

I agree with what the rest said, that it'd be great to have the parts of tragectories that pass below the planet be cut off. A question, though. Could the data from a simulation using this be exported into a different program, say Google earth or Celestia, so you could have a visual record of your flight afterwards. I don't know how that would be done, but it could sure be useful! Other than that, it looks great!

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

I'd imagine it could be done using whatever technique is used for those ships that export trajectory files (for Google Earth). Particularly how the a certain proton and Soyuz launcher addon handles the trajectory format.

 

[Scruce]

OMG! this is EXACTLY what i had in mind a few weeks back!!

Same Here:lol:

Great Addon!! :10sign:

 

[jedidia]

Damit Artlav, you're supposed to work on that texture generator! :lol:

seriously, the speed at which you're crunching out stuff once you had an Idea is getting closer and closer to c. It won't take long anymore and you'll be releasing stuff before you had the idea to make it. Great Work!

ideas are welcome.

Well, maybe we can pick up moaches original Idea: link it up with the Orbiter Navigator. Although I'm still unsure about how practical it would be to handle, and the Navigator has to get finished first.

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

Damit, you're supposed to work on that texture generator! :lol:

Seriously, the speed at which you're crunching out stuff once you had an Idea is getting closer and closer to c. Great Work!

If i got off my lazy asymptote (pun intended, of course), c would probably coincide with where I predicted the next Orbiter release.

Seriously though, I've been wanting one of these for a long time, mainly to help me with system development.

 

[Moach]

(...)
Well, maybe we can pick up moaches original Idea: link it up with the Orbiter Navigator. Although I'm still unsure about how practical it would be to handle, and the Navigator has to get finished first.

now THAT's an addon that could revolutionize Orbiter as we know it! :thumbup:
right now, one of the greatest difficuties that space-rookies face is the lack of situational awareness over what's gonna happen in the "long run" - i believe that something like this, integrated with a navigator/planner tool (all built in prefferably, as to avoid alt+tabbing), could make the big difference - being perhaps similar in effect to the addition of the route-planner thing on MSFS (was that on FS2002?)

this makes for a VERY interesting experience, with all the beautiful complexity of space flight immersed in a very responsive environment, which allows you to see exactly what you're doing - even if you don't know how to operate highly complex navigational MFD's... albeit, not as precisely, i reckon, you could still simply zoom out and check your course :tiphat:

seriously - this idea is so awesome, if you hadn't already done it, i'd eventually try it myself

very awesome! this thing can go lightyears far! one million thanks and some extra for developing it!


the smiles upon your work, Artlav!

 

[Pyromaniac605]

At first I wondered what use this would be, then I realised the reason I can't get to Mars is because my orbits are always too far away from Mars. :facepalm:

Darren

 

[JonnyBGoode]

I couldn't get it to work in P1? I loaded the Galillean Satellite scenario, with the Outer Planets add-on, and expected to see dozens of orbital tracks, and saw none.

---------- Post added at 11:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:37 PM ----------

ok it works... but it seems it only works near where a ship is? I started a DG in Earth Orbit scenario and saw the orbits of the DG, ISS and Mir, as well as the moon. (But not Earth's orbit?) Switched to Jupiter and no orbits, so I'm assuming where there's no ship it doesn't bother to plot orbits?

 

[Keatah]

Ok changes and additions that would make this better.

1- Let us zoom in and out of the solar system and be able to see all trajectories of anything moving.

2- get rid of the videnie on/off data in the upper left-hand corner, or rather let us toggle it on and off. "I" doesn't remove all the text.

3- make the lines a little thicker.

4- make them disappear when blocked by an object or planet. Let us toggle that feature.

5- stop the drawing in the cockpit/instrument panel view, again make that an option.

6- some type of dynamic labeling system where the name of each trajectory is always on the screen

7- make the lines thicker and more ribbon-like, giving us a three dimensional view.

8- make a config file that we can edit and customize.

I'm sure I'll think of more stuff later, and this is a very nice add-on!

 

[mc_]

Just a few words: it should be included in Orbiter by default.

Мегареспект автору

 

[jedidia]

1- Let us zoom in and out of the solar system and be able to see all trajectories of anything moving.

You can zoom out as far as you want when in external view, you know...