[1.2] VOID 1.1.0-beta - Vessel Orbital Informational Display

[Drew Kerman]

Rrrrgh a day after a new release... don't kill me... It just happened to be today I finally started to define requirements for my upgraded telemetry streaming system for my flight tracker site. Could inclination, thrust and throttle be added to the logger? It's been a while since I launched anything to use it but will be doing so again soon!

Edited October 4, 2015 by Gaiiden

[toadicus]

Gaiiden, do you want the throttle as fractional (0..1) or percentage (0..100)? Most spreadsheets are handling that all pretty automatically these days, but I figured I'd ask.

You were too slow. Here's a quick update for you: [zip] [tar.gz] [tar.xz]

I used the percentage, because spreadsheets play really nicely with it these days. If you want fractional I'll change it.

Edited October 4, 2015 by toadicus

[Drew Kerman]

damn you're quick. Thanks I did a quick test launch and it looks good except for one thing - precision. Some readouts have greater precision than others for some reason. I thought maybe it was because of how I had the readouts setup in the game (where you can change the precision for some) so I made them all read out in high precision but when I checked the log Apoapsis read out to two decimal places only up until 100m and then it was all whole numbers. Altitude consistently reads out to three decimal places but down range distance also reads to two then clamps to whole numbers past 100m. Most read out to three so it would be nice if they all read out to 3 decimal places, if possible. It didn't really matter to me before, but now I plan to use interpolation to really smooth out the data updating to the page and could use the extra precision.

[toadicus]

So, the options I have for communicating precision come in two main flavors: fixed and variable floating point. The former lets me say "always show this value to three places", for example "0.123" and "123456789.123". The latter is mostly like "show me this value to three significant figures", which would thus show numbers like "0.123", "1.23", "123" and "123000". Generally, for numbers that will vary significantly in magnitude, I prefer the latter. But, you're right that three sigfigs is not enough. How many would you like? Single-precision floats are theoretically good to about 9 digits in this sort of use. Double-precision are good to about 17 digits. I could give you the whole thing every time if you'd like, or anywhere in between.

Update: here's a quick example mostly using "G9", or "9 sigfigs", with "F3" or "3 fixed decimal places" for a few items that can be reasonably expected to stay within a small range: http://hastebin.com/unofayijac.csv

Edited October 4, 2015 by toadicus

[Stone Blue]

Sorry if this is not relevent, but I use the Orbital Info CONSTANTLY....Now that I am exploring further to the edges of Kerbin SOI, I notice some of the distance readings show in different scales... ie Apo will read in km, but Pe will suddenly change from also km to just meters...Kind of annoying when you are talking large distances...Also when the longer number fluctuates the last few digits constantly...Makes it difficult to make small orbital corrections, when before, with only 4 or 5 digits showing, a quick tap on RCS gets me close enough...With the last 12 digits of a 13 digit number fluctuating QUICKLY all over the place, it makes it interesting to say the least... lol

Would/could this be related to the precision discussion above?

Oh, and this is on .18.3a, not yesterdays update...

And I dont know if I've posted before Toadicus, but I LOVE VOID, and have used it for quite awhile...It seems a bit more intuitive the way its set up, so i can have less windows open, yet see (mostly) the same info as KER...Plus, as an amateur player, LESS info can be better than an overwhelming amount, much less when you dont even understand what half of it means...Not a dig on KER, but right now, I like less-is-best...

Edited March 15, 2016 by Stone Blue

[Drew Kerman]

Update: here's a quick example mostly using "G9", or "9 sigfigs", with "F3" or "3 fixed decimal places" for a few items that can be reasonably expected to stay within a small range: http://hastebin.com/unofayijac.csv

Oh yea, that looks nice. What happened to Lat/Lng though? That used to be written out to G9 and now it's only showing to 3 in the example you gave.

[toadicus]

Stone Blue, that's not specifically related to the conversation at hand, but you still don't need to be sorry for asking. That said, similar to the data logger conversation, precision for those fields is specified in significant figures (more or less), so you don't tell it "give the number in kilometers", you tell it "give me the 2/5/8/11 most significant digits using the prefix needs the fewest filler zeroes" (or something like that; the description isn't perfect). So if you've asked for 8 sigfigs and your apoapsis altitude is 1,234,567,890, it will calculate that it should divide the value by 1,000,000 and show you 1,234.5678 Gm (I think; . If you pull your apoapsis down to 987,654,321 m, the same setting will determine that it should divide the value by 1,000 and show you 987,654.32 km. This is intentional and is intended to reflect your preference for seeing a bunch of numbers before the decimal point, or just a few, as relevant. In general I try to put as few numbers after the decimal point as possible in each case.

As to the twitchy numbers, there's not much I can do about that. If you're in a highly eccentric orbit looking at your periapsis of about 1,000,000 m, with a sigfig setting of 11, it will generally show you the raw value in meters. Because Squad's integrator doesn't handle the edge cases for eccentricity (meaning very circular or very elliptical orbits) very gracefully, the value will be very twitchy. Theoretically I could smooth that myself with a rolling average or something similar, but I'm not sure it's worth the overhead. Open to thoughts on that, though.

Glad you're enjoying the mod! I enjoy making it and love that I get to share.

Gaiiden, Lat/Lon were previously entirely unformatted; I made them F3 because the magnitude is known (always within 0-3 orders of magnitude), and the sort of instrument that measures it would not really be subject to loss of precision as the magnitude varies. But, since one arcsecond (around 30.87 meters on Earth's equator, so less on Kerbin) is 0.00027~ degrees, I should probably go down to at least F4. What's your preference?

[Drew Kerman]

Gaiiden, Lat/Lon were previously entirely unformatted; I made them F3 because the magnitude is known (always within 0-3 orders of magnitude), and the sort of instrument that measures it would not really be subject to loss of precision as the magnitude varies. But, since one arcsecond (around 30.87 meters on Earth's equator, so less on Kerbin) is 0.00027~ degrees, I should probably go down to at least F4. What's your preference?

Everything gets plotted on a map like KerbalMaps, and it can take a full float integer like you would find in the SFS file so I liked having the unformatted lat/lon values. But if you want to cap them then at least F4 since that is what the cursor location data shows for the map

[toadicus]

Here ya go, Gaiiden; up to F5.

[zip] [tar.gz] [tar.xz]

[Thorbane]

The transaction log causes my game to pause for 10 minutes or so when it tries to load it.

Also I have a bazillion CURRENCY_TRANSACTION's with reason = VesselRollout. These are from VOID right? And is there a way to turn them off?

Edited October 22, 2015 by Thorbane

[Drew Kerman]

Here ya go, Gaiiden; up to F5.

One issue I hope you don't mind addressing:

Can you change your logging interval pause to ensure that the data is logged at the start of each interval rather than add the interval to the end of the last logged data time? To make it clearer what I mean, see this blog post I made. I was originally doing the same thing you are. This way outputs a consistent UT value interval that can be used as database keys

Also I don't know if it was intentional but Inclination now outputs only to two places whereas I have earlier log data versions showing it output to 3.

Edit - I just realized doing it my way could potentially pose problems with millisecond intervals? I think a lower limit of the default 0.5s would be okay tho

Edited November 1, 2015 by Gaiiden

[toadicus]

Gaiiden, I can be a bit more intentional about using UT elapsed time for metering the CSV output, but of course ultimately if the frame rates are slower than your desired output rate there's nothing I can do about it. I'll look into that once I've caught up with 1.0.5 revisions.

[Drew Kerman]

Gaiiden, I can be a bit more intentional about using UT elapsed time for metering the CSV output, but of course ultimately if the frame rates are slower than your desired output rate there's nothing I can do about it. I'll look into that once I've caught up with 1.0.5 revisions.

By frame rate are you actually referring to physics lag? I don't see how FPS would factor in here. Running the log off the game time, which I do with my kOS script, means that even if the game slows down the log data still outputs at a consistent rate. I've already seen this when I play back the log data and watch it run faster than the video capture I took of the launch. That's okay, the length of the telemetry is still the same as the length of game time the launch took.

[Drew Kerman]

Ok so my last request about the logging delay is moot now with the latest release of kOS, so toadicus if you thought it was something that would mainly only serve to make my life easier you can keep things as they are. I can now calculate everything I need via kOS.

[PhamNuwen]

My heads up display is two columns of text only a couple of pixels wide extending allmost all the way to the bottom of the screen, instead of the other way around.

[toadicus]

Try using the HUD position reset in the VOID configuration menu. If that doesn't fix it, get me enough information to duplicate the bug myself (at least version info, other mods installed, and the output log).

[toadicus]

VOID has been updated to version 0.18.5! This version catches the rest of us up on Gaiiden's CSV updates, and is recompiled for KSP 1.0.5.

CHANGELOG:

v.0.18.5 [2015-11-10]
* VOID_DataLogger: Added orbital inclination, current thrust, and main throttle data items.
* Recompiled for 1.0.5

[Tolos]

VOID has been updated to version 0.18.5! This version catches the rest of us up on Gaiiden's CSV updates, and is recompiled for KSP 1.0.5.

CHANGELOG:

v.0.18.5 [2015-11-10]
* VOID_DataLogger: Added orbital inclination, current thrust, and main throttle data items.
* Recompiled for 1.0.5

Hope you don't mind, I found a small issue in VOID_EditorHUD.cs. You missed a space in the delta-v readout for the Editor Hud. Below is the 'fixed' code...

orignal code:

hudString.Append("Bottom Stage Delta-V");

fix

hudString.Append("Bottom Stage Delta-V: ");

[toadicus]

Thanks Tolos! I've got that sorted now; it'll be in the next release.

Edited December 1, 2015 by toadicus

[PhamNuwen]

Found what was causing my problems, I was using an ancient version of the Toolbar.

[mielgato]

Hi, I've noticed that when using airbreathing engines, VOID (and Kerbal Engineer Redux for that matter) does not show TWR and D/V either in editor and flight. Even after correcting

hudString.Append("Bottom Stage Delta-V")

IDK what's the trouble, I verified KSP's cache but nope, it don't want to show. And I wont put my nose in the code, this is chinese to me

 

edit : NVM, I just downloaded KER for 1.0.5 (was using 1.0.4 one) and the latest shows twr and d/v for jet engines, it's only a VOID thing ?... any hint ? (pretty sure VOID is up to date)

Edited January 31, 2016 by mielgato

[gamerscircle]

I have most likely an stupid question, I saw this:
http://imgur.com/a/24yeB

Which I think, is showing how I can take some of my currently drifting satellites and using VOID reduce thier drift.. for kind of ever?  Is this true?  and they don't have to be in a synchronous orbit, just circular?

[Stone Blue]

@gamerscircle Ummm... that doesnt seem to be a really efficient way to do it...???  Yes, VOID is an EXCELLENT tool for getting the data you need, but other than that VOID doesnt actually do anything... And you

[toadicus]

@mielgato, I license KER's simulation code to do all my engineering calcs, so any deficiency in their code will be duplicated here.  I also necessarily lag behind a bit on their latest fixes; I'll update my VesselSimulator code and get an update out soon.

@gamerscircle, it's true that synchronizing orbits requires only the SMA to match.  If the orbits are not perfectly circular then from the perspective of one satellite the others will appear to "librate" in the sky, but their relative positions will generally be consistent.  As @Stone Blue said, VOID doesn't actually do anything for you there except show you the SMA as precisely as you need to see it... but that's very important for building constellations!

[Stone Blue]

Huh... Not sure how my last post got cut off, or what I was saying, now... lol

Anyway, I have a new issue...

For some reason the Vessel Register does not seem to work (its always blank), and hence the bottom half of the Rendevous display doesnt display anything, even though I DO have a target selected, and many craft in flight... This has been going on for me for awhile, thru different modded installs, so I'm inclined to believe it may be VOID specific... Also, I know it was working for me in 1.0.4... Not sure if this started happening with 1.0.5 itself, or a recent release of VOID...

Anyone else seeing this?

I cant get into my game right now, but I may post screenshots later...

Edited March 15, 2016 by Stone Blue