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[PLUGIN+PARTS][0.23] SCANsat terrain mapping

damny

By damny
in KSP1 Mod Development

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Hremsfeld

Hremsfeld

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The display on the small map and the planets list in the settings screen tells you the percentage that you've completed each scan. If you have a ship with each scanner type on it, it will never get much above 80% as the BTDT scanner takes a long time to even scan 1% of a planet. I know, I flew a plane at 1500 meters altitude for about half an hour and my complete percentage only went from the 0.8% I already had to 1%. I dare say no one will ever scan a complete planet with the BTDT, maybe one of the smaller moons like Gilly, but I don't think there are any anomalies on Gilly, so it would be pointless. The BTDT scanner only returns useful information when it's near anomalies.

Just put the four other scanners on a ship in orbit and start at 750km altitude. When the display says 25% complete, reduce altitude to about 250km and let it scan the rest until it says 100%. Then you can turn off scanning in the settings screen for that planet to reduce CPU usage, though I think it's not much.

My main scanning satellites only have the hi-res and biome scanners on them; I can send a BTDT lander later to fill that part in. I was referring more to the initial scan; I've read the Ideal Altitudes post and couldn't get Octave to work, or I'd find the non-resonant orbits that way. As-is, I'm basically plugging in an altitude, guessing that it's okay, leaving it going for awhile, and using up my excess dV getting whatever spots I missed. This has been more successful than it should, but on some maps it's difficult to see where that one missing pixel is. It's definitely an edge case, don't get me wrong; I'd be very surprised if it actually made it into the main build. Mainly, I'm just seeing if I could get an estimate for how hard it would be to tweak the source code and make it myself.

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Dweller_Benthos

Dweller_Benthos

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My main scanning satellites only have the hi-res and biome scanners on them; I can send a BTDT lander later to fill that part in. I was referring more to the initial scan; I've read the Ideal Altitudes post and couldn't get Octave to work, or I'd find the non-resonant orbits that way. As-is, I'm basically plugging in an altitude, guessing that it's okay, leaving it going for awhile, and using up my excess dV getting whatever spots I missed. This has been more successful than it should, but on some maps it's difficult to see where that one missing pixel is. It's definitely an edge case, don't get me wrong; I'd be very surprised if it actually made it into the main build. Mainly, I'm just seeing if I could get an estimate for how hard it would be to tweak the source code and make it myself.

Yeah, damny will have to answer that, though have you tried to export the map to PNG and fiddle with the coloring in an image editor to enhance that final pixel that's missing? Though I've never had a problem getting 100% coverage with a 750km polar orbit and about half an hour of 100X time warp for the high res scanner. Another half hour at 250km orbit gets the rest. The couple planets/moons that are tidal locked and take a "year" to rotate once may take a little more time.

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damny

damny

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I did a lot of warping, and ran three sensors at the same time, and suddenly the map screen snowed out, went grey and the game eventually crashed. When I relaunched and tried to start over, I am stuck with the grey map... and my original map craft is still in orbit. Can I delete the database and resume mapping with my two birds? How do I delete the database?

That snowy thing happens when you run out of power. This can be a bit unstable at high warp, which is why it doesn't use power at all at >1000x.

The game crashing is not a feature, but I'm not sure why it would crash because your satellite is out of power.

Data is stored in your persistent.sfs file, look for a SCENARIO section that has "name = SCANcontroller" in it. Somewhere below that line will be blocks that have the name of a planet in them as well as lines that start with "Map = ", followed by line noise. It should be okay to remove individual Body { ... } blocks there to reset progress for specific planets.

(I saw that you already resolved this but maybe this comes up again... of course naturally, the reset option in settings is preferable...)

until it says 100%. Then you can turn off scanning in the settings screen for that planet to reduce CPU usage

It should actually do that on its own if you get to 100%.

I've read the Ideal Altitudes post and couldn't get Octave to work, or I'd find the non-resonant orbits that way.

Those little markers on the equator are where your satellite will cross them during the next few orbits. Resonant orbits are those where they're all clumped up in a small number of spots.

Mainly, I'm just seeing if I could get an estimate for how hard it would be to tweak the source code and make it myself.

I think it wouldn't be very hard. But I've also put it on my todo list.

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KerbMav

KerbMav

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Data is stored in your persistent.sfs file, look for a SCENARIO section that has "name = SCANcontroller" in it. Somewhere below that line will be blocks that have the name of a planet in them as well as lines that start with "Map = ", followed by line noise. It should be okay to remove individual Body { ... } blocks there to reset progress for specific planets.

So, this would also be the way to restore the scans after starting a new game?

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rottielover

rottielover

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I wonder if it is possible to get my Kethane scans to show up on the maps that this or ISA provide....

I'll second this request, I would hope that Majiir and Fractal_UK would be open too it. I don't think you need to add a new scanner though, kethane already has scanners, just the ability to "meld" the maps together or overlay the kethane area's onto the SCANsat maps. That said there are other mods that have mining and the ones I would be interested in are (in order of interest)

Kethane (Kethane)

Interstellar Pack (Uranium and Thorium)

Extra planetary Launchpads (Ore)

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drtedastro

drtedastro

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I'll second this request, I would hope that Majiir and Fractal_UK would be open too it. I don't think you need to add a new scanner though, kethane already has scanners, just the ability to "meld" the maps together or overlay the kethane area's onto the SCANsat maps. That said there are other mods that have mining and the ones I would be interested in are (in order of interest)

Kethane (Kethane)

Interstellar Pack (Uranium and Thorium)

Extra planetary Launchpads (Ore)

Exactly, as above, it would be great to have the ability to have simple map for routing, viewing. With options for pre and post orbits (maybe user select number of), and now the big one, showing the day / night terminator like on some of the world clocks. Now THAT would be a great Christmas present.....

Thanks to all.....

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damny

damny

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Does the slope scanner function (Scanner 4)? Just wondering if I can remove it from my career game, if it doesn't come in handy.

No, I removed that at one point. The item that still exists is only there for savegame compatibility. The release version will not include it by default.

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drtedastro

drtedastro

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Any possibility of a .csv export with the terrain heights? I've got some proper GIS software at work and it would be great fun to play about with it!

Yes, Please..... Ability to have the raw data output is really needed... I also do lots of my own topographical work and 'special' data manipulation techniques. Any form of ascii text file with info such as body, craft, time, lat, lon, elev would be GREAT.... This also allows us to make as large and finely detail maps as we require....

Great idea,,,, yes this would be nice......

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Dwight_js

Dwight_js

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A good place for elevation data is at Kerbal Maps: http://www.kerbalmaps.com/

The relief map tiles can be saved and viewed in GIS software. They lack any projection information and they all overlap when you add them to a project, so you have to "georeference" them (ie, line them up edge to edge). Here's an example of a project I made in ArcScene showing areas with less than 5 degrees of slope to identify landing site candidates: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=17575088&size=lg

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drtedastro

drtedastro

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That is fine and good, but the point is not 'having' the data, the point is 'getting / capturing / going there and doing it yourself'..

Nasa did not 'google maps of the moon' to pick out some place to land...

The whole idea is too do it oneself.

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Dwight_js

Dwight_js

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That is fine and good, but the point is not 'having' the data, the point is 'getting / capturing / going there and doing it yourself'..

Nasa did not 'google maps of the moon' to pick out some place to land...

The whole idea is too do it oneself.

My apologies for pointing you to a source for the information that you were requesting.

Until the raw data from the mod is available, restrict yourself to only downloading the regions that you've mapped with the satellite. It's not rocket science!

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drtedastro

drtedastro

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The same if you go to the site you specified with the finished maps....before you have acquired, processed and worked the data out for yourself, in your own way...

Never mind. I dare say the issue is being missed. Thanks again for the 'site', have a really nice day.

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Dwight_js

Dwight_js

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You can fulfill the "acquire" criteria by flying a satellite over the area. After that, what "processing and working" of the data will you be able to carry out in the mod? As far as I know the mod just pulls elevation numbers from the game files (the sensors are not actually measuring the virtual terrain)- these same numbers have been used to create Kerbal maps. So pulling the data from KM for an area that you have overflown in the game really isn't fundamentally different from getting the raw data dump from the mod, and any specialized analysis that you perform has to be done outside of the game. My method also has the added bonus that you can do it right now!

This might seem pedantic, but I'm just trying to figure out the basis for you self-aggrandizing hyperbole since what you are asking for from the mod is not really any different than what you can get from KM in the interim.

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