New Release: KOrbit 0.2.0

[SchildConstruct]

## KOrbit

### Description

KOrbit is a simple, almost simplistic, orbital calculator written in C#.

### Download

Installers are available at:

Main: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4294562/KOrbit%200.2.0%20Setup.msi

Mirror: https://github.com/CynicalRyan/Kerbal-Tools/downloads

#### Requirements

- .NET 4.0 Client Profile

- Windows Installer 3.1

The installer package will detect and download both if necessary.

### Features

- Circular Orbits

- Select a celestial body, and choose your altitude

- Uses SI units

- Very primitive plotting of your orbit

- Choose if you want to have your orbit plotted or not

- Human friendly display of units.

### Known Defects

- Only a few unit tests.

- Doesn\'t calculate orbits from all possibilities

### Upcoming Features

- Calculate an orbit from its period or your current velocity

- Plotting your orbit with a reference point

- Elliptical orbits calculated from various more options

## Building Of And Hacking On The Tools

- git clone git://github.com/CynicalRyan/Kerbal-Tools.git

- Open the Visual Studio Solution file

### Development Requirements

- Visual Studio 2010 or Visual C# Express 2010

- NUnit

# Acknowledgements

- Warringer for inspiring me to work on KOrbit.

- Napster for the awesome icon.

[icefire]

A screenshot would be nice.

Is it CLI or GUI?

[SchildConstruct]

A screenshot would be nice.

Is it CLI or GUI?

GUI. Screenshot\'s comingbeen added.

[6677]

That forms a bit big isn\'t it??? If your using visual studio then why not click and drag it smaller until you need the extra space.

[SchildConstruct]

That forms a bit big isn\'t it??? If you\'re using visual studio then why not click and drag it smaller until you need the extra space.

It\'s from my development version. A plot has to go somewhere. 8) So, the app is smaller, but I\'m preparing the plotting component already, while I have the space to put it somewhere without having to spawn off another form instance (since inter-Form communication in .NET is a fracking hassle, I rather want to avoid that).

Speaking of plotting: .NET 4.0 masks an out of memory condition when creating large (17.5k px * 2 on my system) bitmaps as an ArgumentException. That\'s incredibly fun to debug!

[SchildConstruct]

New version hot off the build system.

[icefire]

Having a measurement option for m,km,M,G would be useful.

[SchildConstruct]

Having a measurement option for m,km,M,G would be useful.

Meaning? At the moment, I simply use unmodified Si units (i.e. meters, seconds, kilograms). Making everything a little more readable comes after 'functional'.

[icefire]

meter, kilometer, megameter, gigameter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix

[CarolRawley]

I wonder... Does the Altimeter go up to yottameters?

[SchildConstruct]

meter, kilometer, megameter, gigameter

Gotcha! It\'s on the todo list.

[venku122]

I wonder... Does the Altimeter go up to yottameters?

no, it doesn\'t

[Zeroignite]

I\'ve gotten mine up to gigameters without event. Someone here has posted a screenshot showing a reading in exometers, but it was the result of time warp buggedness.

[SchildConstruct]

So, I\'ve pushed out a new release and build of KOrbit. The version is still 0.2.0-pre, until I\'ve provide some better display of units (it\'s both a bug and a feature, and part of the 0.2.0 milestone).

Things I learned:

- MS\'s unit testing framework is made from feces.

- Setting up CI is more involved than it should be, at least as far as Jenkins + .NET is involved.

- I need to double check my formulas more carefuller, since I was calculating the major axis of the ellipsis all wrong.

- Nobody of you checked the data. Kerbin\'s radius was off by .54 km, and no one noticed.

[SchildConstruct]

This is a production-quality *cough, cough* release.

In that it does seem to do what I want it to do.

Anyway, I\'d like to get some feedback on a planned feature: Flight plans!

What I was thinking was creating a flight plan telling you when you need to generate how much thrust into any direction to reach your next orbit.

However:

Is it worth my time to hunt for a PDF library for .NET and 'print' that sort of stuff in a PDF?

Or would you rather see a nice window telling you where you are (I could create checklists. You could create checklists!), highlighting your next approach?

Or both?

Or something else entirely?

Later on, when I have feelings of grandeur again, this could be integrated with a stage planner.

What do you say?

[icefire]

Window, PDF is silly for something like this.

Have flight planning be split into interactive \'stages\', each with a single event. Launch, orbit, eject, slingshot etc etc. When you are finished with the \'stage\' you advance to the next one in the plan.

[SchildConstruct]

Have flight planning be split into interactive \'stages\', each with a single event. Launch, orbit, eject, slingshot etc etc. When you are finished with the \'stage\' you advance to the next one in the plan.

That sounds good. Would need some nifty icons for the types of manoeuvres (launch, decoupling, ascending an orbit, descending an orbit, plane change, etc) for ease of use, but it is definitely doable, ideally as a simple drag and drop thing.

[Warringer]

This is a production-quality *cough, cough* release.

In that it does seem to do what I want it to do.

Anyway, I\'d like to get some feedback on a planned feature: Flight plans!

What I was thinking was creating a flight plan telling you when you need to generate how much thrust into any direction to reach your next orbit.

However:

Is it worth my time to hunt for a PDF library for .NET and 'print' that sort of stuff in a PDF?

Or would you rather see a nice window telling you where you are (I could create checklists. You could create checklists!), highlighting your next approach?

Or both?

Or something else entirely?

Later on, when I have feelings of grandeur again, this could be integrated with a stage planner.

What do you say?

Just build yourself a HTML template and then save the whole thing as HTML file. Easy to open everywhere with any browser. And no need for an external library.

Anyway, I\'m going to steal the \'flight plan\' thing for the KSP Calculator...

[SchildConstruct]

Just build yourself a HTML template and then save the whole thing as HTML file. Easy to open everywhere with any browser. And no need for an external library.

Good point, but of little educational value to me.

Anyway, I\'m going to steal the \'flight plan\' thing for the KSP Calculator...

I figured you would.

[strgzr]

I get a Norton Insight alert on the .msi file. Anyone else see this?

strgzr