Could somebody test out my star chart program please

Hello Everybody I have written a starchart application in visual c++ and I
was hoping somebody could test it and maybe give me some constructive
critism.
PS it needs an opengl 3D graphics card.

James

PS if you dont want to leave crtitism for everybody to see the Program is on
www.ailwyn.schoolzone.co.uk/starchart.zip
James


"moogle33" wrote in message
...
Hello Everybody I have written a starchart application in visual c++ and I
was hoping somebody could test it and maybe give me some constructive
critism.
PS it needs an opengl 3D graphics card.

James

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:48:29 -0000, "moogle33"
wrote:

Hello Everybody I have written a starchart application in visual c++ and I
was hoping somebody could test it and maybe give me some constructive
critism.
PS it needs an opengl 3D graphics card.

James


VERY Nice.

Very simple to get used to it.

I noticed I had to exit and restart to get my location to work/update
(Sydney Australia is closest), but that was no drama.

I love the mouse zooming and moving.

Ok, constructive crit. I don't know how far you want to go with it,
but I wonder if you want to allow different bitmaps for the stars?
I like them, but the zoom obviously turns them into squares, which is
a pity, since if you are zooming in on M42, for instance, it looks
distracting, even though it's a nice effect.
It becomes obvious if you set the magnitude slider at max, even zoomed
out to the max. The image is better if you are at about 75% on the
magnitude slider.


I know the effect you are aiming for with the "ground", but I prefer
to either have it completely block out the stars, or not be there at
all. The transparency is cute, but I wouldn't use it.

The Milky Way is *very nice*, and I'd probably have that on all the
time.

Minor niggles:

In the "view" menu, I'd have the options a tad better described.
"Charts" should be "RA and Dec Lines" or "Local Grid" or "Grid Lines",
and "Constellations" should be "Constellation outlines"

I love the program.

No problems with running it in background/minimised, and minimal
impact on CPU.

You've done awesome with a "small" amount of code :-))

BTW:

My System is a P4 2.6 Ghz, 512 MB, Windows XP, Nvidia TNT2/64MB, with
latest drivers. I'm going to try it on the Linux box if I can get the
damn OpenGL to work properly for more than 20 minutes at a time.

I'll run it for a few weeks, and give it to my kids (16 and 18) to try
out.


--

Find out about Australia's most dangerous Doomsday Cult:
http://users.bigpond.net.au/wanglese/pebble.htm

"You can't fool me, it's turtles all the way down."

"moogle33" wrote in alt.astronomy:

Hello Everybody I have written a starchart application in visual c++
and I was hoping somebody could test it and maybe give me some
constructive critism.
PS it needs an opengl 3D graphics card.


Nice piece of work. Looks good.

- More fonts available
- a simple button "Now" which returns you to the current (computer) time
- Apply settings without closing the settings dialog box
- a simple "lock on" function (for easier in- and outzooming on an object
- opaque horizon
- animation settings: include a sideral day. Always fun (moon, sun,
planets).
- maybe set that sniper crosshair to get back exactly south instead of
East.

Good luck!

--
CeeBee


"I am not a crook"

moogle33 mumbled his insignificant opinion in:


Hello Everybody I have written a starchart application in visual c++
and I was hoping somebody could test it and maybe give me some
constructive critism.

First impression: neat!
Very simple interface, didnt take many seconds from loading the program to
getting on with it.

I should mention im *absolutely* rookie regarding astronomy!

Just by using it for 1 minute i could tell its the best navigation program i
have seen so far (tried quite a bunch actually), its very easy to use, and
doesnt require much knowledge really.

Some critism/req's

Unlike Wally, i do like the "ground". Being new to this im not so
experienced about navigating, so its a good tool when you need to look at
the actual object in realworld.

Make the moon bigger , as a symbolic item. I also use that when im outside
to spot things with.

I know that alt & azi are common terms in astronomy, but again it would be
more usefull to me if there was something like a traditional compass. Maybe
as an optional interface so you can choose which you prefer. Its not much of
a big deal, since the 4 corners are written just above the horizon.WEST is
messed up with sadachbia? and sadalmelik though.. oh yeah, the fonts can be
slight hard to read when rotated or zoomed.

The mouselook feature is nice ,but it stutters a whole lot. Its mostly
eyecandy but it would look way better if it was a smooth panning. If you
move around fast, you often end up loosing track, it could be nice with a
feature to "grab" a point on the screen, and then rotate/pan fixed to that,
rather than relative movement. As i played around i just noticed zoom is on
scrollbutton, thats nice! You could apply the "grab" function to 3rd button
while your at it

The zoombar at top, why not make that interactive, so you could actually
control zoom there too? (less relevant when you use the scrollbutton..)

If you are below ~50% magnitude, the stars flickers alot. Not sure if that
could be improved by higher resolution, antialiasing or something else.
OpenGL offers some options for that.

Thats it i think.. no major flaws or anything like that, thumbs up! Very
userfriendly and does the job.

"moogle33" wrote in
:

Hello Everybody I have written a starchart application in visual c++
and I was hoping somebody could test it and maybe give me some
constructive critism.
PS it needs an opengl 3D graphics card.

James



Star brightnesses are not stepped very realistically in many cases. Eg in
Scorpius Antares (1.0 Vm) is the same as brightness as Tau (2.9 Vm) and
Sigma (3.1 Vm) either side of it. Same for Altair and its "attendants" Beta
and Lambda. With constellation line off these constellation are dificult to
pick out.

Otherwise I like the realistic night sky feel especially with the Milky
Way rendering. The simpliciy is welcome and that it loads up almost
instantly.

Martin Lewicki

Not bad.....X86-based, P4,2.4GHz, 448ram, winxp updated,SiS M650........I'm
going to give it 2 my son (10yrs old) to play with.

good job.........

terri


"moogle33" wrote in message
...
| Hello Everybody I have written a starchart application in visual c++ and I
| was hoping somebody could test it and maybe give me some constructive
| critism.
| PS it needs an opengl 3D graphics card.
|
| James
|
|




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Thank you every body, your ideas have really helped.
Im so glad that you liked what ive done so far, it really means a lot to me.

Looks like ive got some work to do. Im going to try my hardest to implement
all of your ideas.

Over the weekend I started to think about being able to view the stars from
other stars and the way I have written my program it shouldnt be too hard to
do that. so the next release (maybe version 1.0) should have all your
improvements and you will be able to put the viewing camera on different
stars.

James

Pretty nice program, a few more things I'd add:

Allow the zoom to zoom out more.

Hide the stars that are below the horizon when you have the ground
showing.

Make the time box a little larger. As it is the AM/PM gets cut off.

Add tool tips to your tool bar. When I mouse over I have no idea what
each tool does until I click it.

Show an approximation of what magnitude you are showing.

Keep up the fine work.

Craig

In article ,
says...
Thank you every body, your ideas have really helped.
Im so glad that you liked what ive done so far, it really means a lot to me.

Looks like ive got some work to do. Im going to try my hardest to implement
all of your ideas.

Over the weekend I started to think about being able to view the stars from
other stars and the way I have written my program it shouldnt be too hard to
do that. so the next release (maybe version 1.0) should have all your
improvements and you will be able to put the viewing camera on different
stars.

James

"moogle33" ha scritto nel messaggio
...
Hello Everybody I have written a starchart application in visual c++ and I
was hoping somebody could test it and maybe give me some constructive
critism.
PS it needs an opengl 3D graphics card.

James

looks great but it runs very slowly on my Geforce 4 MX card ...