[1.0.2] Persistent Trails - record, share and replay track data! (May 14, V1.2)

SirJodelstein · September 8, 2013

Document your epic journeys! Fly in formation! Race your friends! Paint the skies! Here is the Persitent Trails plugin:

This is a partless plugin (made in cooperation with Snjo) that records a track history of your vessel. Like this:

More uses

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(Video link for demo of replay-racing, note that this is outdated, replay now has actual vessel geometry instead of spheres)

Formation flying (with track line visualization switched off)

Features:

- Vessel geometry track replay. Optionally with physics colliders (so you can crash into the recorded vessels). Optionally with playback looping for continuous motion. Or with Fast-Forward.

- optional direcitonal markers

- "continue track" function allows to resume a previously recorded track

- add "log entry nodes" to a track to have georeferenced labels on your track

- fully customizable style

- Each track is stored in a separate file for easy sharing

Technical stuff

- Released under MIT license.

- Download on Spaceport

- Source on GitHub

- Install: Put the PersistentTrails folder as a subfolder of GameData (just like any other mod)

- Requires the Toolbar plugin, which is not longer distributed with this plugin.

Version history

- 1.2 Update for 1.0.2.

- 1.1 [Release Details]: Plugin Toolbar integration, FigaroGPS support, fixes for struts, fuel lines and launch clamps for replay

- 1.0 [Release details] Joined forces with Snjo. Vessel geometry saving and replay, Replay looping, smart node placement.

- 0.8 fixed quickload bug, fixed logentry node labels not updating while GUI is hidden(F2). added tooltips and track length display

- 0.7.1 memleak fix and fix for orbital velocity recording

- 0.7 StackOverflow Exception removed, 0.2 seconds recording option, minor GUI enhancements => Beta Status

- 0.6 added playback function, fixed logentry label positions

- 0.5 initial release

Future plans/TODO

- Stock AppLauncher integration

- better track list (title linebreaks etc)

- more info readouts (time, avg. velocity, etc)

- automatic line-width adjustment depending on distance between camera and track points

- Detect node-label mouseovers and display log-description text

- make tracks show up in map mode

- ballistic preciction preview

- (maybe) add "realistic" tire tracks with textures (if something like that does not kill performance too much)

Feedback, code contributions/corrections and help welcome. Thanks a lot for all the helpful voices on the "help a fellow developer" thread, to the creators of TacLib for their great window-gui-framework, and to the creators of KerbCam and Kerbal Alarm Clock for the source code that helped me a lot in learning how to do stuff with the KSP API.

Edited May 14, 2015 by SirJodelstein
1.0.2

September 8, 2013

Hey! This looks very cool and promising!

EuSouONumero345 · September 8, 2013

So, this will "paint" every place you go with your vehicle?

SirJodelstein · September 8, 2013

So, this will "paint" every place you go with your vehicle?

If activated, it records latitude, longitude and altitude of the current vessel every X seconds. These data points are rendered as a line with adjustable color and thickness.

Exangels · September 8, 2013

"Coming to a screenshot thread near you soon: Giant pink [RICHARDS] on Duna...

Internet folk are predicable after all"

Lol cant wait to see peoples creations with this

This mod Looks Awesome

Edited November 30, 2013 by sal_vager
Slightly inappropriate language.

Starwaster · September 8, 2013

Ok, so locally on your machine, how do you have your plugin installed? Reason I ask is that there's a lot of dlls in these folders and if they're all in the gamedata folder somewhere, KSP will find and try to execute them. Not saying that's the cause of your problems but definitely something to avoid doing.

deadshot462 · September 8, 2013

Pretty cool, does this show up on Map View?

TheCanadianVendingMachine · September 8, 2013

I have a idea. You (maybe) can implement a replay mode with this. Just have the ship track the line without input

djnattyd · September 8, 2013

I was thinking yesterday how great something like this would be. Lo & behold, the KSP community is full of telepaths! Thanks for this, I'm off to draw a face on the Mun

Starwaster · September 8, 2013

Ok, about your error, I think you're probably caught in a loop somewhere executing over and over until you run out of resources. I'm not done going through it but this looks bad right here

from trackmanager.cs


        public void updateCurrentTrack()
        {
            trackManager.updateCurrentTrack();
        }

Edit: Eh, it's in a different class, never mind.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Starwaster

Blaylock1988 · September 8, 2013

I wonder if this could be adapted for Kethane to create pipelines....

SirJodelstein · September 8, 2013

Ok, so locally on your machine, how do you have your plugin installed? Reason I ask is that there's a lot of dlls in these folders and if they're all in the gamedata folder somewhere, KSP will find and try to execute them. Not saying that's the cause of your problems but definitely something to avoid doing.

Install this just like any other plugin - just extract the zip in your GameData folder. The zip contains just one dll plus icons.

Pretty cool, does this show up on Map View?

No, not (yet). For the moment, you will have to zoom out in the 3D view and make the line width big enough to see it from a big distance.

I have a idea. You (maybe) can implement a replay mode with this. Just have the ship track the line without input

Cool idea. I had something similar in mind, and the foundation for this already in place. Each track point is saved with a currently unused time tag, so it will be possible to do these replays in real time (or optionally with some speedup factor. Not sure how to get the vessel geometry/mesh, but moving a sphere along that path is definitely doable.

TouhouTorpedo · September 8, 2013

Very cool. I was thinking something like this would be good but I wouldn't have made an implementation that neat.

I've not got the time to check your code unfortunately at the moment but I hope you get it sorted. This really expands the potential in challenges, since you can verify claims properly.

Starwaster · September 9, 2013

Just making sure, but did you also see this part of the error? (from output_log.txt)


  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()

  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()

  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()

  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()

  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()

  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()

pages and pages and pages of it

BigFatStupidHead · September 9, 2013

This is really, really neat. It will certainly find a permanent home with me once you solve that crashing bug. Good luck!

HoneyFox · September 9, 2013

No, not (yet). For the moment, you will have to zoom out in the 3D view and make the line width big enough to see it from a big distance.
.

Like this and hope that it can be viewed in map view.

For the line width issue, if you can find a way to get the camera distance, you can multiply that as a coefficient with a constant value for the line width so that when you zoom the camera farther, the line width will increase accordingly and the line will appear with an almost constant width on the screen. Well, at least I've done that in some of my plugins before, though in map view.

SkyHook · September 9, 2013

Any plans to record the vessel's position and vector in 3d space? This would help immensely to visualize my shuttle's reentry path.

SirJodelstein · September 9, 2013

Just making sure, but did you also see this part of the error? (from output_log.txt)
  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()

  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()

  at (wrapper delegate-invoke) PQS/OnDefaultDelegate:invoke_void__this__ ()
pages and pages and pages of it

Jup, that's what i am seeing in my logs. the erros start with one line of "StackOverflowException: The requested operation caused a stack overflow.", followed by this this not-really helpful stacktrace. Looks like infinite recursion for me, but thats not my code, and (as far as i can tell) i have not done anything with PQS in my plugin, i don't even know what that does.

automatic line width

added to my TODO list. Good idea. It would be even easier if Unitys linerenderer could just render OpenGL-Lines with a constant pixel width, but i could not find such an option.

Also, i do not know how this map view works or how i can draw stuff in there. I have read something about ScaledSpace, but i am not sure how to continue

Any plans to record the vessel's position and vector in 3d space? This would help immensely to visualize my shuttle's reentry path.

Vessel altitude is tracked as well, so you can already record flights with it. Just keep in mind that the track is recorded relative to a parent body, path tracking in near-geostationary orbits would probably make some really weird trails

HoneyFox · September 10, 2013

added to my TODO list. Good idea. It would be even easier if Unitys linerenderer could just render OpenGL-Lines with a constant pixel width, but i could not find such an option.
Also, i do not know how this map view works or how i can draw stuff in there. I have read something about ScaledSpace, but i am not sure how to continue

 line.SetPosition(..., ScaledSpace.LocalToScaledSpace(FlightGlobals.ActiveVessel.orbit.getPositionAtUT(time)));

some code snippet from one of my plugins using ScaledSpace, with the lineRenderer (its useWorldSpace is true BTW).

SirJodelstein · September 10, 2013

Version 0.6 is out! Added a replay window that moves a sphere along the path, at the same speed that the recording vessel had. Includes a fast-forward function and a slider for direct playback position selection. Still working on that stupid StackOverflow crash...

Edited September 10, 2013 by SirJodelstein

acealeam · September 10, 2013

Amazing job. I finally have a reason to make a rover.

SirJodelstein · September 12, 2013

Wooot, i finally found and fixed the bug that caused the StackOverflowException (Note to self: dont put "AddToProstDrawQueue" calls in OnGUI). Plus, i added a "high speed record" mode with recording interval 0.2s for fast movements like flights. With this fix, this plugin has officially reached Beta status.

Tower flyby attempt while checking out the new 0.2s recording interval. 1400 track points recorded and rendered without noticable slowdown

Now go out and play with it I am sure there are still some bugs in it, but in the current state it is definitely useable. Have fun!

DBrickShaw · September 12, 2013

Awesome work, I'm really enjoying this one

HoneyFox · September 13, 2013

Excellent, now aerobatics will turn to ACMI.

Plus we can record a rocket's ascent path and then follow it when we want to launch the same rocket again.

HoneyFox · September 14, 2013

It seems like the record ends when my rocket reach a certain altitude.

So I cannot record the entire ascent path of the rocket. Any clue?

[1.0.2] Persistent Trails - record, share and replay track data! (May 14, V1.2)

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