[PLUGIN+PARTS][0.23] SCANsat terrain mapping

[GhostChaser]

Simply amazing, with the few minor bugs/tweaks mentioned already it runs great. I have noticed to "unzoom" from the big map, just close it and wait a few minutes and then reopen it.

One suggestion though, could you add the °, ', " to the anomalies so we could use MechJeb (I know, I'm a lazy Kerbalnaut) to land by 'em.

Other than that, amazing work thus far. Really looking forward to future updates!

[sirkut]

There are already six different parts to this mod. When you open up the map the little hi lo bio and other labels he describes in his original post turn green when you enable a specific satellite part. Grey when it's off. It's a great setup. Certainly diversifies your tasks.

[Nertea]

Ah, my bad, I only fiddled around with it for a minute or two before my GPU forced a sudden reset of my computer .

[BananaDealer]

Ah, my bad, I only fiddled around with it for a minute or two before my GPU forced a sudden reset of my computer .

Oh, I hate these...

[Thourion]

Just a heads up about the big map Zoom.

If you want to clear the zoom, instead of using the "close" button on the big map, just use the small's toggle one to close and reopen the big. Instawipe of zoom.

Instead if you use the close button on the big it stays there when you reopen it from the small.

Also in case someone hasnt noticed, you can keep right clickin without waiting for render, to keep zooming in. Its fun that it goes AALL the way down to the grass, alas you dont see any detail though

Edited October 29, 2013 by Thourion

[OrtwinS]

Just a heads up about the big map Zoom.

If you want to clear the zoom, instead of using the "close" button on the big map, just use the small's toggle one to close and reopen the big. Instawipe of zoom.

Instead if you use the close button on the big it stays there when you reopen it from the small.

Also in case someone hasnt noticed, you can keep right clickin without waiting for render, to keep zooming in. Its fun that it goes AALL the way down to the grass, alas you dont see any detail though

A more elegant solution would be:

1st right-click = zoom

2nd click = extra zoom

3rd click = zoom gone

OR if you want to keep the infinite zooming, right-click will continue to zoom, and a leftclick inside the zoom window will close the zoom.

OR, rightclick is zoom in, and left click is zoom out (and at the final level, no zoom).

[Thourion]

Id prefer a right-click zoom with a left-click zoom out (or vice-versa), and a middle-click close the zoom. Or a small X icon in the top right of that window for closing.

[BananaDealer]

A more elegant solution would be:

1st right-click = zoom

2nd click = extra zoom

3rd click = zoom gone

OR if you want to keep the infinite zooming, right-click will continue to zoom, and a leftclick inside the zoom window will close the zoom.

OR, rightclick is zoom in, and left click is zoom out (and at the final level, no zoom).

OR!... Just have them set to the + and - on a numberpad...

[sharpspoonful]

OR!... Just have them set to the + and - on a numberpad...

Not everyone has a num pad, OP and myself included.

[BananaDealer]

Not everyone has a num pad, OP and myself included.

Or the standard + and - of the keyboard... Not sure why I had to specify...

[rottielover]

You sir/madam, are my HERO!

I'm loving this so far! SUPER JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wow, I just can't say thank you enough.

[Innsewerants]

Nice stuff, finally some competition on the mapping front.

You just reveal/unhide game textures? I purposely avoided that because I wanted Mapsat to actually do what a topography sat does

(though that means multisat was too perfomance intensive for mapsat.)

But it's a valid approach and one I though about using for colour maps but I couldn't find a reliable method of accessing the planet colour textures ingame without pre-making them and putting them in the zip and that's just not a good solution imho so I stopped with the real terrain colour.

Good luck with the mod, I've been waiting for someone to try a different approach and compete a bit instead of just trying to steal/take-over Mapsat because I was on ksp-vacation longer than they had patience for.

If it's using anything from Mapsat, the license for Mapsat doesn't allow for that. If there is something you use that's critical but is a snippet from mapsat let me know and we'll work it out.

Downloading and testing as we speak. This is the ISA replacement if you can work out the kinks.

You do know Mapsat 4 devbuild works with .20 .21 and .22 that's why I took a break from it until now. So technically it doesn't need replacing lol.

[Majiir]

You just reveal/unhide game textures? I purposely avoided that because I wanted Mapsat to actually do what a topography sat does

(though that means multisat was too perfomance intensive for mapsat.)

The OP clearly explains this mod does in fact query the game directly and does not reveal a prebuilt texture. In the case of biomes, they're internally defined by a texture, so that texture is the best possible representation (color encoding issues aside).

If it's using anything from Mapsat, the license for Mapsat doesn't allow for that. If there is something you use that's critical but is a snippet from mapsat let me know and we'll work it out.

I'm not sure why you assume he would have stolen something. ISA code is a mess, and mapping isn't difficult.

You do know Mapsat 4 devbuild works with .20 .21 and .22 that's why I took a break from it until now. So technically it doesn't need replacing lol.

Saying it "works" is technically correct but doesn't accurately capture its usability problems. That's why users are clamoring for something even remotely close to a mapping mod.

[KhaosCorp]

You do know Mapsat 4 devbuild works with .20 .21 and .22 that's why I took a break from it until now. So technically it doesn't need replacing lol.

HAHAHAHAHA!!

Lemme finish that for ya....

It works IF its the only mod you use and IF you dont leave it on to long.......your mod is full of memory leaks bud, personaly havent considered ISA working since 0.20 dropped.......

And backhandedly implying he took something from your code...well that's just sad man....maybe you should go back on KSP vacation, and take your ego with ya =P

BTW..Damny, keep doing what your doing, this mod is great so far. Enjoying playing with multiple sats at different heights/types.

Edited October 30, 2013 by KhaosCorp

[DigitalProeliator]

HAHAHAHAHA!!

Lemme finish that for ya....

It works IF its the only mod you use and IF you dont leave it on to long.......your mod is full of memory leaks bud, personaly havent considered ISA working since 0.20 dropped.......

And backhandedly implying he took something from your code...well that's just sad man....maybe you should go back on KSP vacation, and take your ego with ya =P

BTW..Damny, keep doing what your doing, this mod is great so far. Enjoying playing with multiple sats at different heights/types.

Hey KhaosCorp no need to gets testy. Yes it does work technically so he is right. From what Ive heard he's an amateur programer that did his plugin as a challenge to himself despite having no experience doing anything similar. So what he did was amazing even if it does have some bugs.

He also has a right to be protective of his own work since he created it but don't miss the fact he also offered to work something out if Damny wanted to try and use something.

Damny Nice work downloading now to test it out. Ill leave some feedback in a few hours.

[damny]

Ok, I'm not going to be able to reply to everything. I'm putting most of the suggestions in this thread on my todo list and I'll address them once I get to implementing them. Just a few points I want to address:

- What is the distance for the BTDT detector? I can see the anomaly names for the KSC, Island Airfield, the Pyramids and two monoliths from a satellite in a 160*180 km orbit. I didn't have any scanners running until I reached orbit. I also have two unnamed anomalies.

Yeah, that sounds broken. It's supposed to work below 2000m above ground. Looking at the code, it seems like I messed it up when I changed it the last time and it now works if the anomaly is below 2000m. Doh.

Annoying bug for me, since I think it's one of the more critical things that it doesn't spoil anomalies accidentally...

As for the suggestion to add a map-only part, I assume that's what the MapTraq will be.

Correct. It should already be that part. I hope it's not finding things.

Because I'm a remote sensing analyst by trade, I think it'd be super cool if you could split this into a few parts - perhaps a multispectral scanner that would detect biomes, a visible-band scanner for doing pretty pictures, maybe a SAR scanner for elevation?

That's already the case, but I'll admit my experience in this field is spotty at best.

Currently, the SAR sensor is what detects biomes and anomalies. My rationale is that biomes aren't actually biomes, but more like different types of terrain, e.g. grassland vs. sand, or on Mun it's simply different craters that only differ in which shade of grey they are. When I worked with SAR data in the past, that's almost exactly what we used it for (along with buildings and vehicles, e.g. identify a tank model by its shape on a SAR image).

But that's about all I have, so I'm definitely interested in a better explanation of how these sensors could work. Maybe SAR would be better for the high res altimetry sensor, and then multispectral for biomes? There's no visible band sensor yet.

You just reveal/unhide game textures?

No, as I wrote in my first paragraph, just revealing existing pictures is not acceptable, it's just not the same thing.

If it's using anything from Mapsat, the license for Mapsat doesn't allow for that.

I've never looked at your code. You're free to check, github link is in the first post.

In the case of biomes, they're internally defined by a texture, so that texture is the best possible representation (color encoding issues aside).

Actually, the biome texture in the game is not exact. Biomes have a colour, and the game determines the biome at a given location by finding the biome with the assigned colour that's closest to the corresponding pixel's colour. I'm also assuming that the pixel colour is interpolated like normal. So on paper, a representation like mine would be better as a map, since it shows clear boundaries and at a higher resolution (so you can see where biomes flip due to interpolation).

The problem is only, I don't actually know how this is implemented in the game and my method of finding the biome for a given location is only my interpretation of "closest colour". There appears to be an API function that I could use to find the biome at a location, but unfortunately it prints debug messages to the screen. If that gets fixed then my biome maps should be more accurate than the texture.

[Innsewerants]

I've never looked at your code. You're free to check, github link is in the first post.

Hehe I'm not that paranoid lol, if you had used bits of it I would have offered to put in an exemption for your use that's all.

[Mekan1k]

Does this new replacement for mapsat have a feature that lets you find anomalies?

[OrtwinS]

The story went like this:

1) damny posts his in-dev version of SCANmap

2) *damny turns around*

3) BWAM 5 pages of comments, people going nuts

Does this new replacement for mapsat have a feature that lets you find anomalies?

Yes, it does!

Edited October 30, 2013 by OrtwinS

[Marcuzzi]

Nice mod, trying it out now. Thank you for releasing this, and I think OrtwinS put it best:

Rewards for creating this:

• Our not-actually-eternal, but still pretty long-during gratitude
  
• Relation +1000 with many KSP users
  

[OrtwinS]

Nice mod, trying it out now. Thank you for releasing this, and I think OrtwinS put it best:

Thanks! I'm so glad my whine call for action thread has had some use.

And I'd like to (ab?)use this opportunity to remind people we can ACTUALLY boost damny's rep by 1000, click that little star icon on damny's post .

Edit:

Oh, and damny, if you're still in the buisiness of adding stuff to your todo list...

Have you considered implementing other map projections?

Something to reduce the deformation around the poles, perhaps something like this or perhaps better: this?

Of course it will break the perfect vertical north-south alignment, but it will help estimating distances and sizes. (besides, the conversion formulas are not that much of a deal).

Low priority of course, just something to consider.

Edited October 30, 2013 by OrtwinS

[sarbian]

One more to add to the sugestion list : add ground track for each sat, so we can see how they overlap ( I just saw this : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55821-Ground-track )

[KhaosCorp]

Hey KhaosCorp no need to gets testy. Yes it does work technically so he is right. From what Ive heard he's an amateur programer that did his plugin as a challenge to himself despite having no experience doing anything similar. So what he did was amazing even if it does have some bugs.

He also has a right to be protective of his own work since he created it but don't miss the fact he also offered to work something out if Damny wanted to try and use something.

Damny Nice work downloading now to test it out. Ill leave some feedback in a few hours.

I wasnt being 'testy'...that was actually me being nice about it =)

And making a plugin with little C# experiance...kinda cool, but in no way justifies being a jerk. And get real people...go read the last 20-30 pages of ISA thread and tell me its ACTUALLY working.....its gamebreaking.

Childbirth is amazing. Aerospace engineering is amazing. The beauty we enjoy on this planet, all its natural wonders...that's amazing.

Making a plugin for a videogame....pretty cool...not really amazing =P

[a__gun]

Hehe I'm not that paranoid lol, if you had used bits of it I would have offered to put in an exemption for your use that's all.

Whilst I know there has been some drama with regards to the maintenance and updating of ISA MapSat, I have not followed it closely so I apologise in advance if this comment is way off:

Havn't people been wanting to build on your code for quite some time..? And been refused....? Why the sudden offer of exemption for someone who has actually just gone ahead and made something...?

[sharpspoonful]

Nice stuff, finally some competition on the mapping front.

You just reveal/unhide game textures? I purposely avoided that because I wanted Mapsat to actually do what a topography sat does

(though that means multisat was too perfomance intensive for mapsat.)

But it's a valid approach and one I though about using for colour maps but I couldn't find a reliable method of accessing the planet colour textures ingame without pre-making them and putting them in the zip and that's just not a good solution imho so I stopped with the real terrain colour.

Good luck with the mod, I've been waiting for someone to try a different approach and compete a bit instead of just trying to steal/take-over Mapsat because I was on ksp-vacation longer than they had patience for.

If it's using anything from Mapsat, the license for Mapsat doesn't allow for that. If there is something you use that's critical but is a snippet from mapsat let me know and we'll work it out.

You do know Mapsat 4 devbuild works with .20 .21 and .22 that's why I took a break from it until now. So technically it doesn't need replacing lol.

True, but due to the long gap in your updating/code reworking, similarity in utility, and the fact that I can run this on my Mac without fear of my CPU and logic board melding together, it IS a replacement for ISA in my opinion. Nothing against you, Innsewerants as I know life can get in the way of hobbies, but Damny has built this to be more KSP friendly in what I've seen so far.

To top all of this off, ScanSat is not only is this competing, I think it is out-doing ISA by simplifying the plugin, and making the whole thing much more user-friendly.

Edited October 30, 2013 by sharpspoonful