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[1.10.1] SCANsat [v20.4] -- Real Scanning, Real Science, at Warp Speed! [September 9, 2020]


DMagic

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12 minutes ago, smjjames said:

Maybe something caused it to try and fire during the moment of transition?

Well, the log seems to think the vessel transitioned from the Sun to the Sun after the SOI change, so I'm guessing something about high timewarp may have screwed things up.

Also, I've switched the forum links for all of my mods to Space Dock, let me know if there are any problems with them. I'll get around to the KSP-AVC file links later; SCANsat's CKAN link was already switched to GitHub, so it should be fine.

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Hello, love your mod; and I recently noticed that the option was added to change palette colours and height ranges for the altitude maps. I was wondering though:

Is there some way to extend the height range further than the ~17km it is limited to right now?

Reason I'm asking, is that I'm playing with a Kerbol system scaled up 15 times and most highland is 20km high already, some peaks are even >70km, but the scansat map cannot display the gradient any further than ~17, so pretty much the whole map is white.

Second question:

Do you, by any chance, have plans for the option to change sensitivity on the slope map? As it is right now, it's very hard to make practical use of the slope map (except on bodies with very obvious terrain changes such as Minmus), because ~5% slope seems to be the upper limit, even on bodies that have much steeper slopes. Resulting in most planets being covered in "high slope terrain".

Edited by Boosterpack
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48 minutes ago, Boosterpack said:

Is there some way to extend the height range further than the ~17km it is limited to right now?

You can edit the rangeAboveMaxHeight field in the SCANsat/Resources/SCANcolors.cfg file to something higher than 10000. This will increase the slider limit for each planet. 

You can also load your game, use the Save To Config button in the Color Management window (this will override the SCANcolors.cfg file with the values from your current save), then manually edit the maxHeightRange field for each planet. You might also be able to get away with using a Module Manager config to accomplish the same without editing the file; if the system only has the stock planets then they should be recognized without adding anything new to the config file.

After changes are made to the config file you will have to select the Reset To Default button for each planet to get those values to apply in-game (they will apply automatically when starting a new game though).

53 minutes ago, Boosterpack said:

Do you, by any chance, have plans for the option to change sensitivity on the slope map? As it is right now, it's very hard to make practical use of the slope map (except on bodies with very obvious terrain changes such as Minmus), because ~5% slope seems to be the upper limit, even on bodies that have much steeper slopes. Resulting in most planets being covered in "high slope terrain".

Not really because the slope map doesn't really measure slope and isn't actually very useful. Using a zoomed in, high resolution altimetry map will probably give you a better indication of how flat an area is. 

 

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I never really considered this until now when I'm prepping my Flight Tracker for use with my KSA reboot but something I took for granted last time was the "satellite image data" used for the maps. I never really used a satellite to get that, only terrain and slope and biome data. Any interest in a part dedicated to photo imaging with its own scanning limits?

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Gaiiden There is a GitHub issue for this from way back. I've never really considered it a priority.

There are a few issues that complicate the idea:

  • There isn't always an immediately available scaled space map, Kerbin, for example, just has this weird grey-scale thing.
  • I'm not sure how well the different map projections would turn out when using a rectangular map as the source.
  • It might be a bit of a memory hog, since multiple large textures are involved.

Adding new scanners through MM won't work. Only resources can be added this way, since they are just variations on the same thing.

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2 hours ago, DMagic said:

@Gaiiden There is a GitHub issue for this from way back. I've never really considered it a priority.

There are a few issues that complicate the idea:

  • There isn't always an immediately available scaled space map, Kerbin, for example, just has this weird grey-scale thing.
  • I'm not sure how well the different map projections would turn out when using a rectangular map as the source.
  • It might be a bit of a memory hog, since multiple large textures are involved.

Adding new scanners through MM won't work. Only resources can be added this way, since they are just variations on the same thing.

Mmm, good points.

Actually I've just realized I don't even need an ingame mechanic, I can maybe just program my own Leaflet layer to cover up the map and show only the swaths covered by my mapping satellite

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Is there any way to see multiple resources at once?

If I want to mine for 10 different resources, I don't want to pick 10 different mining spots (and 10 different mining ships); I'd rather combine that into 2 or 3 mining spots.  I don't see a good way to visualize good mining spots for multiple resources aside from flipping back and forth between the various resources one by one.

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@DMagic In terms of unlocking the resource map, how does SCANSat know when a planet is mapped and it's time to unlock the planet's resource map? More specifically, how does it unlock a planet's resource map? I'm currently using ResourceMap.Instance.IsPlanetScanned in stock, but was wondering if I need to do anything different when SCANSat is installed.

I should clarify that I'm referring to when stock scanning has been disabled.

Edited by Angel-125
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3 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

@DMagic In terms of unlocking the resource map, how does SCANSat know when a planet is mapped and it's time to unlock the planet's resource map? More specifically, how does it unlock a planet's resource map? I'm currently using ResourceMap.Instance.IsPlanetScanned in stock, but was wondering if I need to do anything different when SCANSat is installed.

I should clarify that I'm referring to when stock scanning has been disabled.

If I understand right, you are just looking for something to tell you when SCANsat has performed a resource scan? 

When stock scanning is not disabled SCANsat just looks at the ResourceMap like you do, and fills in the internal SCANsat records from there. 

When instant scan is disabled there just isn't any interaction between stock and SCANsat resource scans.

When stock scanning is disabled there are two methods that are used. 

One is something I set up with Pathfinder in mind. If you have stock scanning disabled a new option will be presented in the SCANsat resource settings window. This option allows the user to set a threshold for when SCANsat resource scanning will trigger the stock resource scan. By default, once you pass 90% (I think) coverage with a SCANsat all-resource scan (using the clamshell scanner) the stock scan will automatically be completed. It can be disabled though, which might screw things up with Pathfinder.

The other method is to use reflection to ask SCANsat what the resource scanning coverage is for a planet. That's a bit of a pain, though if you want to look into it Contract Configurator uses it.

The best option would be to instruct your users to set the SCANsat resource scanning threshold level to some amount and to perform a scan with the M700.

You can see the resource settings window along with a description in the SCANsat wiki.

 

3 hours ago, hab136 said:

Is there any way to see multiple resources at once?

If I want to mine for 10 different resources, I don't want to pick 10 different mining spots (and 10 different mining ships); I'd rather combine that into 2 or 3 mining spots.  I don't see a good way to visualize good mining spots for multiple resources aside from flipping back and forth between the various resources one by one.

Not really. The only option is to export maps with different resources turned on and line them up, or try to layer them on top of each other. I plan on adding a section in the wiki about handling this.

There isn't really a practical way to handle it in-game. Two or three resources at a time might be manageable, but an arbitrary amount is tough. 

 

Edited by DMagic
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1 hour ago, DMagic said:

One is something I set up with Pathfinder in mind. If you have stock scanning disabled a new option will be presented in the SCANsat resource settings window. This option allows the user to set a threshold for when SCANsat resource scanning will trigger the stock resource scan. By default, once you pass 90% (I think) coverage with a SCANsat all-resource scan (using the clamshell scanner) the stock scan will automatically be completed. It can be disabled though, which might screw things up with Pathfinder.

Very cool! :) It sounds like SCANSat is already set up so that Pathfinder won't run the stock scanner and instead use the SCANSat scanner. I'll have to give it a try and see what happens, thanks again. :)

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@Angel-125 One thing that I'm not sure of is any modifications that Pathfinder does to the scanner parts.

Does it simply add extra modules to the M700 or, replace the stock module?

SCANsat disable some functions of the stock scanner when stock scanning is disabled, so there could be some issues there.

 

I see that you add a planetary resource too. There is a section in the SCANsat wiki about adding resources, but I can also add it in the next update (which should hopefully happen before 1.1).

Edited by DMagic
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4 minutes ago, DMagic said:

@Angel-125 One thing that I'm not sure of is any modifications that Pathfinder does to the scanner parts.

Does it simply add extra modules to the M700 or, replace the stock module?

SCANsat disable some functions of the stock scanner when stock scanning is disabled, so there could be some issues there.

Pathfinder (specifically the TERRAIN scanner) doesn't replace any modules. It adds a continuous scanner that won't affect SCANSat's operations. Basically it watches to see when the planet's resources are unlocked and when they are, it enables the continuous scanner. Here's a link to the scanner code if you'd like to have a look. Thanks again for making such a great mod, I'm looking forward to using it in 1.1 :)

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6 hours ago, hab136 said:

Is there any way to see multiple resources at once?

If I want to mine for 10 different resources, I don't want to pick 10 different mining spots (and 10 different mining ships); I'd rather combine that into 2 or 3 mining spots.  I don't see a good way to visualize good mining spots for multiple resources aside from flipping back and forth between the various resources one by one.

There a way to export the maps (the camera button in the lower right hand corner of the big map)  You could probably export them and layer them in a gfx program such as GIMP.  My 2 cents worth - I've not tried this but I read it somewhere.

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6 hours ago, DMagic said:

Not really. The only option is to export maps with different resources turned on and line them up, or try to layer them on top of each other. I plan on adding a section in the wiki about handling this.

There isn't really a practical way to handle it in-game. Two or three resources at a time might be manageable, but an arbitrary amount is tough. 

 

Yeah, there's not a good way to visualize 12-dimensional data in 2-dimensional space :D

After sleeping on it, this is what I came up with:

One way would be to just add the colors together. If a particular pixel's color is supposed to be 32,0,43 (R,G,B) for resource 1 and 72,12,0 for resource 2, then the end result would be 104,12,43.  Might have to divide by the number of resources so every pixel doesn't end up as 255,255,255 (or add a GUI control to divide all numbers by a configurable amount).  This probably would just be a mess beyond two resources, or if those two resources had similar colors.  Maybe have dedicated colors for multi-resource comparisons?  (Resource 1 = Blue, Resource 2 = Red, regardless of how they're defined otherwise)

Another way, which would work for arbitrary number of resources, is just check present/not-present and add those up for every resource beyond the cutoff filter.  If all 10 resources are present in amounts beyond the cutoff filter, then draw white.  Else draw black (or nothing if it's on top of another map, like slope/altitude/etc).

Or maybe a combination of the above?  Don't draw anything if all resources are not present, and if they are all present, add up the percentages and then draw that on a scale.   2% Ore and 4% Water = draw 6%.  You wouldn't be able to tell whether you had 1% Ore and 9% Water, or 9% Ore and 1% Water, you'd just see 10% on the scale.. but it would show you hot spots which you could then investigate further. Mouseover could show you the exact amounts.

I don't know how feasible any of this would be.

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Yeah, there are probably lots of ways to handle it (and an absolute ton of information is available on data visualization and mapping).

One simple step that would probably help a bit, but not require much work from me, is to allow the mouse-over info and tooltips to show all available resource concentrations, instead of just the one.

 

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KSP 1.0.5, SCANSat v14.8

I'm unsure if I'm missing something but I've been having problems with displaying resources in the zoom map you get when you right-click on the Big Map.

I have a resource selected for display and turned on in the Big Map.  This works.  I right-click on an area already scanned and the zoom map is displayed.  Resources are toggled on and the same resource is selected.  However, the zoom map remains in grey scale and no resource information is displayed at the bottom edge of the zoom map.

Occasionally, zooming in and out can end up rendering the coloured resource overlay, but this behaviour is inconsistent.  It doesn't matter which resource I select after that, the display stays in or reverts to grey scale.  If I can get the rersource overlay to render and then right-click on another area on the Big Map, the zoom map consistently redisplays in grey scale.

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@DMagic I'll check the wiki right away.  It's been a while since I've been there.

My SCANSat settings are: Biome Lock enabled, Instant Scan disabled, Require Narrow Band enabled, Disable Stock Scanning enabled. I have a sat in Mun polar orbit with a M700 actively scanning the surface.  The resource pie-chart displays all of the resource proportions.

Oh..wait...now it works.  After returning to KSC and the VAB, and launching another vessel, it now reliably displays the zoom map every time.

Thanks...perhaps it was your sheer presence that made it work.:D

 

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Version 14.9 is out; get it on Space Dock.

It features improvements to the zoom map and to the slope display. It also fixes some issues with contract generation, attempts to properly detect the maximum elevation of planets not defined in the SCANcolors.cfg file, and adds support for the GeoEnergy resource. See the first post for the full change log.

There are new buttons to directly open the zoom map; these are found on both the small map, the big map, and Blizzy's Toolbar when in the flight scene. The Color Management window button has been removed, a button added to the top of the settings menu can be used to open that window now.

3m41Xht.png   1NPwSb0.png

 

When opened directly, the zoom map will target the active vessel at 10X zoom; the map will still use the projection and map type settings from the big map. Use the vessel icon in the top-right corner to re-sync to the current vessel position and planet. The zoom level indicator in the middle is still used to sync to the big map settings and planet.

d7veR8d.png

 

There is also a new slider in the slope tab of the Color Management window. It is used to adjust the cutoff between the two slope color pairs. Lower the value to allow for lower slope values to use the upper color pair, this is particularly useful when using the slope map in the zoom map at high zoom levels.

MFvH30C.png

The difference between the default cutoff of 1 and a lower value of 0.2 is shown using the zoom map over the mountains to the South West of the KSC.

nVrk33H.png

Examples from the Mun; note that lower cutoff values can make the big slope map very noisy:

Spoiler

Three cutoff values for the zoom map on the Mun; 1.5, 1, 0.4 from left to right.

DPlXaWs.png

 

Default cutoff for the Mun:

UXXLrg4.png

 

Lower cutoff value:

YLTr8wE.png

 

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