Constellations

By
Dave
2011
Jun
17
21:53
Posted in

It's been a while since I added support for constellation boundaries. I've now added support for drawing constellations and asterisms, along with their names.

Since there are no 'official' definitions of constellation patterns, I've followed the constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union.

I've initially placed names at the average position of the component stars. I may add support for a manual position if this results in too many overlapping labels.

Constellations

Figure 1. Constellations and names.

Constellations

Figure 2. Constellations, boundaries and names.

Motion Blur

By
Dave
2011
Jun
17
21:51
Posted in

I wanted to experiment with the use of motion blur for the following:

  • When moving between bodies, since this can result in a fast "fly-by".
  • When observing bodies move past the camera at high speed, such as when using high time-multipliers.
  • For fast orbital motion of satellites or moons. In this case it is quite distracting to see a label jump-around an orbit when it is too fast to move smoothly. In this case motion blur "smoothes" out the motion, and reduces the distraction to the eye.
  • When panning the background stars.

I started with Shawn Hargreaves' post on Motion Blur. Some initial screenshots are shown below.

Motion Blur

Figure 1. Moving towards saturn.

Motion Blur

Figure 2. Moving past saturn.

Motion Blur

Figure 3. Earth rotation.