I've been rendering with POV for several years (since POV 2!) but it wasn't
until about a year ago that I realised that I could use it to produse very
nice 2D diagrams...

The following image is totally scripted. It is one of twelve that are to be
used in an Astronomical Almanac. The original image is 1425 pixels square
(ie 300dpi on an A5 page) and takes about 1m41s to render with AA set to 0.3

The stars were created by a little VB program (that I wrote) which converted
the public domain "Bright Star Catalogue" to an include file, each star
being a macro invokation. The constellation lines, labels and object markers
and labels are hand positioned macro invokations. The Milky Way is an image
map created from an all sky photographic survey.

The whole system can be used to render the sky from anywhere on Earth and at
any time of the night or year.

The only thing missing are the planets... I'm still working on getting their
positions correct given just a date!

Rarius

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Attachments:
Download 'Almanac.jpg' (57 KB)

Preview of image 'Almanac.jpg'

"Rarius" <rar### [at] rariusworldonlinecouk> wrote :
>
> The only thing missing are the planets... I'm still working on getting
their
> positions correct given just a date!

    That's cool. It could use some informational text in the corners giving
time and date etc.

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Rarius wrote:
> 
> I've been rendering with POV for several years (since POV 2!) but it wasn't
> until about a year ago that I realised that I could use it to produse very
> nice 2D diagrams...
> 
> The following image is totally scripted. It is one of twelve that are to be
> used in an Astronomical Almanac. The original image is 1425 pixels square
> (ie 300dpi on an A5 page) and takes about 1m41s to render with AA set to 0.3

It looks nice, some more detailed scale around the circle would be nice.  

> [...]
> The only thing missing are the planets... I'm still working on getting their
> positions correct given just a date!
> 

That would be great, you might have a look at:

http://hotel04.ausys.se/pausch/comp/ppcomp.html

Christoph

-- 
Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde>
IsoWood include, radiosity tutorial, TransSkin and other 
things on: http://www.schunter.etc.tu-bs.de/~chris/

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On Sun, 4 Feb 2001 13:59:47 -0000, Rarius wrote:
>I've been rendering with POV for several years (since POV 2!) but it wasn't
>until about a year ago that I realised that I could use it to produse very
>nice 2D diagrams...

I like to see POV used for things like this where you need to represent data
with an image.  I also liek to use POV for text when it needs to look good, for
example in the mouseover buttons on my web page. 

-- 
Cheers
Steve              email mailto:ste### [at] zeroppsuklinuxnet

%HAV-A-NICEDAY Error not enough coffee  0 pps. 

web http://www.zeropps.uklinux.net/

or  http://start.at/zero-pps

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Rarius <rar### [at] rariusworldonlinecouk> wrote:

> The stars were created by a little VB program (that I wrote) which converted
> the public domain "Bright Star Catalogue" to an include file, each star
> being a macro invokation. The constellation lines, labels and object markers
> and labels are hand positioned macro invokations. The Milky Way is an image
> map created from an all sky photographic survey.

Any chance I can get a hold of this?  I've been looking for an accurate
local star map so that starfields in the background of my images are
accurate.  Randomly placed feels wrong.  I had hoped to find an image on the
web, but I've had no luck.  This could do better, as it gives some
variability.

Geoff

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> local star map so that starfields in the background of my images are
> accurate.  Randomly placed feels wrong.  I had hoped to find an image on
the
> web, but I've had no luck.  This could do better, as it gives some
> variability.
>
> Geoff

There already is a package called XStars which contains what you want, the
9999 brightest stars in correct position and color, in an include file. I
found it in Ken's links some time ago.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Galaxy/8018/

Chris

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Chris Jeppesen <chr### [at] digiquillcom> wrote:

>> local star map so that starfields in the background of my images are
>> accurate.  Randomly placed feels wrong.  I had hoped to find an image on
> the
>> web, but I've had no luck.  This could do better, as it gives some
>> variability.
>>
>> Geoff

> There already is a package called XStars which contains what you want, the
> 9999 brightest stars in correct position and color, in an include file. I
> found it in Ken's links some time ago.

> http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Galaxy/8018/

Ooh.  Nice.  I'll check it out.

Geoff

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