If I wanted to create an imaginary solar system,
and I had all of the info about rotations and
angles and all the stuff you'd need to know for
such a thing. Could I create it with povray? Could
I set it up to give me the view from a certain
point on a certain world in the system? for
instance. Tour standing on Saturn, looking up at
the sky. Is it dark or light, can you see the
rings, which of the moons are out tonight and what
phase are they in. Would any of this be possible?

Hube

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Hube wrote:
> 
> If I wanted to create an imaginary solar system,
> and I had all of the info about rotations and
> angles and all the stuff you'd need to know for
> such a thing. Could I create it with povray? Could
> I set it up to give me the view from a certain
> point on a certain world in the system? for
> instance. Tour standing on Saturn, looking up at
> the sky. Is it dark or light, can you see the
> rings, which of the moons are out tonight and what
> phase are they in. Would any of this be possible?
> 
> Hube

 It certainly is possible in fact it has been done many times. The only thing
you need to be careful about if the scale of the solor system. The program
has an epsilon value that will limit great distances and make some of the
outer planets dissapear. The way to avoid this is by scaling your solar
system down and it should pose no problem to you.

Browse through the i.r.t.c. and you should find many examples of peoples
work with star systems. http://irtc.org

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 700+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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If you have all the data, then any of this is possible.

Hube wrote:

> If I wanted to create an imaginary solar system,
> and I had all of the info about rotations and
> angles and all the stuff you'd need to know for
> such a thing. Could I create it with povray? Could
> I set it up to give me the view from a certain
> point on a certain world in the system? for
> instance. Tour standing on Saturn, looking up at
> the sky. Is it dark or light, can you see the
> rings, which of the moons are out tonight and what
> phase are they in. Would any of this be possible?
>
> Hube

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I think that a _realistic_ tour around the solar system is quite boring
since the planets are so small when compared to the size of the solar
system. You can't see two planets at the same time (well, actually you can,
but the other planet will look like a star). I think that even seeing two
moons and a planet at the same time is difficult enough.
  That's why in non-realistic simulations of the solar system they scale
the planets a lot bigger than they actually are, so that you can see most
of them at the same time.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Vibes of "Only You Can Save Mankind" Pratchett. Someone wrote a
program that was a similation of flying to Alpha Centuri,  and if
you ran the program and left your computer for one hundred
thousand years, and were looking at the screen at just the right
time a message would come up saying "Welcome to Alpha Centuri,
there's nothing here so go back home".  

Alot of code involved and I'd imagine that the render time'll be
a bitch, just think of all those little curly bits on the church
roof.


Hube wrote:
> 
> If I wanted to create an imaginary solar system,
> and I had all of the info about rotations and
> angles and all the stuff you'd need to know for
> such a thing. Could I create it with povray? Could
> I set it up to give me the view from a certain
> point on a certain world in the system? for
> instance. Tour standing on Saturn, looking up at
> the sky. Is it dark or light, can you see the
> rings, which of the moons are out tonight and what
> phase are they in. Would any of this be possible?
> 
> Hube

-- 
Cheers
Steve

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
%HAV-A-NICEDAY Error reading file mailto:sjl### [at] ndirectcouk

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Well, not to put a damper on this but scaling down can cause possible
difficulties on primitives (ie. disappearing sphere at about 0.001
unit scale). Probably can fit the typical planetary system into
POV-Ray without too much concern though and it has been done before as
Ken said. The best advice I can think of (since you are saying you
already have all the data :) is that you will no doubt want to get a
good grasp of the camera for zooming in/out and position/look_at. The
orientations can be a trick, nothing I can say to help out I think.
But most of all, to see the tiny specks those planets and moons will
make is going to require much tolerance adjustment I think. At normal
perspective distant planets won't show up readily without being
somehow artificially oversized during that particular "normal"
viewing, something like what Nieminen has said. The rendered singular
pixels have a tendancy to flicker on and off (just as in animations,
only single frame here) so they either show on the display or not.
Because of these sorts of things having the data isn't everything,
whether it be POV-Ray or other programs I'm pretty sure. It's because
of the 3D nature and limitations of the calculated objects.
But I digress, and rant, and rave....... so, I'll just wish you good
fortune with your endevour. But first, I leave you with this URL to a
POV Planetarium:

 http://home.global.co.za/~mvds/software.htm

Bob

Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
news:37B### [at] pacbellnet...
>
>
> Hube wrote:
> >
> > If I wanted to create an imaginary solar system,
> > and I had all of the info about rotations and
> > angles and all the stuff you'd need to know for
> > such a thing. Could I create it with povray? Could
> > I set it up to give me the view from a certain
> > point on a certain world in the system? for
> > instance. Tour standing on Saturn, looking up at
> > the sky. Is it dark or light, can you see the
> > rings, which of the moons are out tonight and what
> > phase are they in. Would any of this be possible?
> >
> > Hube
>
>  It certainly is possible in fact it has been done many times. The
only thing
> you need to be careful about if the scale of the solor system. The
program
> has an epsilon value that will limit great distances and make some
of the
> outer planets dissapear. The way to avoid this is by scaling your
solar
> system down and it should pose no problem to you.
>
> Browse through the i.r.t.c. and you should find many examples of
peoples
> work with star systems. http://irtc.org
>
> --
> Ken Tyler
>
> See my 700+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
> http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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Bob Hughes wrote:
> But first, I leave you with this URL to a POV Planetarium:
> 
>  http://home.global.co.za/~mvds/software.htm
> 
> Bob

Also see Pov and space dynamics at:
http://www.digiquill.com/kwansys/povspace.html

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 700+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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Bob Hughes wrote:
> [...] The rendered singular
> pixels have a tendancy to flicker on and off (just as in animations,
> only single frame here) so they either show on the display or not.

This very thing has affected proceedural (ie. granite of some such)
starfield patterns and been successfully counteracted by 
super-charging the ambient (that is, setting ambient 10.0 or some 
such wildly exaggerated ">1.0" value) --- naturally, that makes the
pixel look luminescent, but for stars and planetary bodies, that's 
what you want it to look like anyway, so it can for these purposes 
be a valuable trick. 

Charles
-- 
http://www.enter.net/~cfusner
"...Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time,
 and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell..." 
                              -The Two Towers, JRR Tolkien

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>Bob Hughes wrote:
>> But first, I leave you with this URL to a POV Planetarium:
>> 
>>  http://home.global.co.za/~mvds/software.htm
>> Bob
>
>Ken wrote:
>Also see Pov and space dynamics at:
>http://www.digiquill.com/kwansys/povspace.html

I never tire of how educational the whole POV-world can be.
There's always something interesting around here(even if I
am horrible at math!).

Phil
-- 
...coffee?...yes please! extra sugar,extra cream...Thank you.

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Phil Clute wrote:
> 
> >Bob Hughes wrote:
> >> But first, I leave you with this URL to a POV Planetarium:
> >>
> >>  http://home.global.co.za/~mvds/software.htm
> >> Bob
> >
> >Ken wrote:
> >Also see Pov and space dynamics at:
> >http://www.digiquill.com/kwansys/povspace.html
> 
> I never tire of how educational the whole POV-world can be.
> There's always something interesting around here(even if I
> am horrible at math!).
> 
> Phil
> --
> ...coffee?...yes please! extra sugar,extra cream...Thank you.

#declare Ken*math + Phil*math = 0;

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 700+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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