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Author Topic: A New Surface Base Editor  (Read 13341 times)

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Offline James.Denholm

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Reply #25 - 19 November 2007, 01:45:33
Quote
ar81 wrote:
I have not too much time since I got married and got my current job.
As a freelancer I used to have more time.
But at least I have a paycheck for sure every month...

The paycheck and the wife is the most important thing. So long as we are happy, nothing else matters (exept our
health).

-------------------------------------
The etiquette of a cigarette, vinaigrette mixed with anisette, the silhouette of a clarinet, is but a stockinet in a landaulette.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Rhymes

Offline GXE3

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Reply #26 - 20 November 2007, 18:55:07
First, ar81, may I use maps and some other files included in the SBW program for my program? I'd have your name in
bold on the credits section of the documentation.

Second, can someone provide me with the formulas for the Calc ops in the SBW. Unfortunately, I'm only in 15 years
old and I haven't learned math that advanced yet. So if someone would just give me the formulas that would be
great.

Quote
Sorry, but my program will only display the blueprints of objects as well; it will not display the objects as 3D
shapes.
However, I plan to include validation tools in the program. For example, I plan to include a tool that will search for
incomplete objects or objects that contain default values.

By the way, I just want to say thanks to ar81 for creating the Surface Base Wizard and the idea of a surface base
program.

Scratch what said earlier about the 3D rendering. My program will have 3D rendering, but not in the first release.  
:)


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline James.Denholm

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Reply #27 - 21 November 2007, 00:04:50
Remember, ar81, your name will be in BOLD. Not even I get that... :D

-------------------------------------
The etiquette of a cigarette, vinaigrette mixed with anisette, the silhouette of a clarinet, is but a stockinet in a landaulette.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Rhymes

Offline GXE3

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Reply #28 - 22 November 2007, 05:20:48
I updated the first post on the topic with some information on how to get weekly builds of the program.


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline picto

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Reply #29 - 07 December 2007, 00:19:40

GXE3,

I was thinking about a really useful feature for your program.

If it could allow to show and edit on a unique window Tiles and objects, it will be really
easier to build nice spaceports as it is very difficult to adjust objects that we can't see
on a unique prog. If we except Orbiter itself off course. :)


Pic

Offline GXE3

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Reply #30 - 07 December 2007, 13:26:33
Quote
picto wrote:

GXE3,

I was thinking about a really useful feature for your program.

If it could allow to show and edit on a unique window Tiles and objects, it will be really
easier to build nice spaceports as it is very difficult to adjust objects that we can't see
on a unique prog. If we except Orbiter itself off course. :)


I kind of understand what you're saying, but could you try to explain what you mean a little better? I'm not really
understanding what you mean by a "..unique window..".
:wonder:


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline picto

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Reply #31 - 07 December 2007, 17:46:36

Excuse me for my poor english. :sad:
same window .... only one window .... :grat:


Pic

Offline ar81

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Reply #32 - 07 December 2007, 20:18:37
See http://www.orbitersim.com/forum/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=4666&p=2

For rotation you may need matrix operations.
For 2D projection in the drawing area you will need the formulas I provided in that link.

The rest you will need is to manage objects, according to the rules of Orbiter SDK.
If you draw meshes, you will need to either find a good way to store meshes in memory, or to load meshes each time
it redraws meshes (which is far slower, what SBW does because it is not focused on mesh viewing).

If you read meshes, either to store in memory or to read when redrawing, you will find that many meshes will crash
your app if you do not make a good loader.  So you need to test it with as many meshes as possible.  I learned that
when making Mesh Wizard.

Even if those rules to manage objects seem pretty simple, you may have lots of work.
The tough part is to make it to handle many things, not only in a consistent manner, but also following a logical way
for user.


Offline GXE3

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Reply #33 - 07 December 2007, 20:31:44
Quote
picto wrote:

Excuse me for my poor english. :sad:
same window .... only one window .... :grat:


OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I understand!!!

Don't worry!. The GUI for the editor is coming along great. I want the user interface to be absolutely perfect and easy
to follow.

PS: Picto, your english isn't that bad. :)


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline ar81

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Reply #34 - 07 December 2007, 21:27:54
Easy to follow... there is a career called "usability engineering".
It is about how to make things better and more usable.


Offline GXE3

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Reply #35 - 10 December 2007, 16:58:34
Quote
ar81 wrote:
Easy to follow... there is a career called "usability engineering".
It is about how to make things better and more usable.

I assure you, it will be easy to follow.
By the way, I'm creating a website with a section for obiter users. The main reason I'm doing this is to get opinions of
the editor. I also plan to eventually create my own tutorials, but don't be expecting them really soon.


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline ar81

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Reply #36 - 10 December 2007, 17:33:55
Yes I know it will be easy to follow.
I never had a doubt about it.
I know that your program will be cool!!


Offline GXE3

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Reply #37 - 10 December 2007, 18:23:05
Quote
ar81 wrote:
Yes I know it will be easy to follow.
I never had a doubt about it.
I know that your program will be cool!!

Hope you aren't being sarcastic :)


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline ar81

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Reply #38 - 10 December 2007, 18:50:23
Not sarcastic at all.  I believe in you.  :beer:
The good thing about Orbiter is that you always can make something better.
Someone should be sarcastic if he felt envy.
But why should I feel that?
I only would feel that if we were competing.
What would be the point of competing?  None.  Orbiter is filled wioth collaborations and you never compete with a
collaborator.  You are a collaborator, so my role as collaborator too is to collaborate.

If you are improving your skills, good for you and good for me.
I disclosed already the tricks and code to make it.
Now it is time for you to shine.

TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More.


Offline James.Denholm

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Reply #39 - 11 December 2007, 02:11:01
True. Rome wasn't built in a day, and nor by one person.

-------------------------------------
The etiquette of a cigarette, vinaigrette mixed with anisette, the silhouette of a clarinet, is but a stockinet in a landaulette.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Rhymes

Offline reekchaa

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Reply #40 - 11 December 2007, 05:48:58
True.  But Rome had lions and tigers and monkeys with spherical trigonometry.

~ the Reekchaa

Offline GXE3

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Reply #41 - 11 December 2007, 23:33:12
Quote
reekchaa wrote:
True.  But Rome had lions and tigers and monkeys with spherical trigonometry.

Very true!


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline James.Denholm

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Reply #42 - 17 December 2007, 04:30:47
And the Egyptians had those funnt tractor beam thingys. I've seen the pyramids, thet are MASSIVE.

-------------------------------------
The etiquette of a cigarette, vinaigrette mixed with anisette, the silhouette of a clarinet, is but a stockinet in a landaulette.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Rhymes

Offline GXE3

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Reply #43 - 17 December 2007, 05:36:26
Quote
And the Egyptians had those funnt tractor beam thingys. I've seen the pyramids, thet are MASSIVE.

..Massive isn't the Word.
...
..
....They are GARGANTUAN! :)


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline GXE3

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Reply #44 - 05 January 2008, 22:31:07
Programming is going well so far. I ran into several "brick walls", but I've found my way around them. The biggest set back
was when I discovered that the java 2d API had a different coordinate system than the standard graphing system. After several
attempts to convert java 2d coordinates to graphing coordinates, I gave up and decided to use the java 3d API instead. The
good thing is that there will be 3d rendering for surface bases in the program eventually. :) The bad thing is that I have no
familiarity with the 3d API which means I'm learning as I'm working.


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline ar81

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Reply #45 - 10 January 2008, 19:46:54
If screen coordinates in the top left of the screen is (0,0) then you may use the formulas from the second post here.
http://www.orbitersim.com/forum/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=4666&p=2


Offline GXE3

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Reply #46 - 10 January 2008, 20:42:54
Quote
ar81 wrote:
If screen coordinates in the top left of the screen is (0,0) then you may use the formulas from the second post here.
http://www.orbitersim.com/forum/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=4666&p=2

Thankyou! Thankyou! Thankyou!....etc
I thought really hard on how to convert the coordinates and I gave up under pressure. This is really helpful, but at
some point, I do plan to have 3d surfacebase rendering. But still, Thankyou!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline ar81

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Reply #47 - 10 January 2008, 21:32:01
Those simple formulas kept me having a headache for days...
It meets your definition of "brick walls".

The problem there is that you have
-Surface base coordinates
-Screen coordinates

It is quite a mess because you have to start with a centered axis around the center of the screen, and you have
translation and zooming.
So it is a bit confusing to handle so many things in a single formula.

This time I put down this brick wall.
But next time if the brick wall is too thick, I might not be able to help you.
Brick walls are a test of persistence.

Another brick wall I had was when I had to make shuttle scenario generator.
I had to convert latitude/longitude to meters and back to calculate platform parts and shuttle position.


Offline GXE3

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Reply #48 - 10 January 2008, 22:28:06
Because of my current knowledge of math, this was a very thick brick wall for me, but I did have some ideas as to
how to covert the coordinates.

Anyway, I was confident in the java 3d api because its screen coordinates were similar to surface base coordinates.
The first release of the "Surface Base Studio" (I finally thought of a name for the program) will have blueprints just as
the SBW did. For the second or third release, however, i'd like to explore the world of 3d.

By the way, ar81, do you have any tutorials on the .msh format? Perhaps when I become familiar with .msh, I'll help you add it to wikipedia. :)



Post Edited ( 01-10-08 22:29 )

-GXE3
A 15 year old.
Long Live Java


Offline ar81

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Reply #49 - 11 January 2008, 14:16:53
If you download Mesh Wizard, you will have everything I know about meshes in the manual.
SBW is not very efficient for meshes, for it reads the mesh as it draws, but SBW was not designed to work on meshes.
The msh format is not the challenging factor, what is challenging is to design a good way to accommodate all data in
memory in a very efficient way, for you may find meshes that have 200k polygons (like Merlin transport) or 90k like
Greg's vessels.

When handling high volume of data you need dynamic alocation and efficiency so the balance between performance
and memory usage is good.

I am still trying to figure out a good way to do it.

« Last Edit: 11 January 2008, 14:16:54 by ar81 »