[PLUGIN+PARTS][0.23] SCANsat terrain mapping

[TheCrimsonCorndog]

Hi Damny,

Awesome mod! Really expands the game in a meaningful way.

Bug: My big map window is gone. It's definitely rendering (frames drop significantly), but the window doesn't actually appear on screen. It looks like a few other people have reported this since the latest build. Any way to fix it without losing my current map progress?

[mikeydz]

Great mod!

One question though on the % of scan completed display.

Currently running a test mapping of Kerbin. All scanners on the sat. In the large map, all the maps look complete, no missing data on this pic that I can see. But on the small map, it only shows 79.8%, while on the settings screen, it shows Kerbin at 99.7%. I can believe from the maps that I'm missing 0.3% somewhere, but where is the small map getting 79.8% from?

Thanks again for a great mod.

[KerbMav]

How would I restore my mapped data when starting a new save and were unwilling to start all over again?

Can I copy something over or would I have to setup a cheat-sensor with a view angle of 90 degrees?

[Demon_82]

Great mod!

One question though on the % of scan completed display.

Currently running a test mapping of Kerbin. All scanners on the sat. In the large map, all the maps look complete, no missing data on this pic that I can see. But on the small map, it only shows 79.8%, while on the settings screen, it shows Kerbin at 99.7%. I can believe from the maps that I'm missing 0.3% somewhere, but where is the small map getting 79.8% from?

Thanks again for a great mod.

As far as I know, the extra 20% is born when the plugin takes in account the BTDT readings, that must be used really close to the surface. At least, that's how I got it to get past 80% in Kerbin, using BTDT sensor from a plane. The other 80% (or 100%) are the 2 altimetry, slope and SAR readings, even when 2 of them are actually a single sensor, each Reading being valued for 25% (to 100%) or 20% (80% plus BTDT to reach 100%).

[TheCrimsonCorndog]

Figured out a quick fix for the missing Big Map window:

Open the "persistent" file in your save directory.

Ctrl + F search for "SCANcontroller".

"map_x" and "map_y" should be set to some ridiculous location. (mine keeps resetting to -10434, -10848)

Change these values to some arbitrary position inside of your screen resolution. (about half should work)

Save.

Presto! Your big map is back.

I think the bug has something to do with right-clicking on the Big Map while in cockpit view. Will report back if I can nail down the exact cause.

[Dweller_Benthos]

As far as I know, the extra 20% is born when the plugin takes in account the BTDT readings, that must be used really close to the surface. At least, that's how I got it to get past 80% in Kerbin, using BTDT sensor from a plane. The other 80% (or 100%) are the 2 altimetry, slope and SAR readings, even when 2 of them are actually a single sensor, each Reading being valued for 25% (to 100%) or 20% (80% plus BTDT to reach 100%).

Yes, the little map screen takes into account all the sensors on the current craft, so if you have a BTDT sensor on an orbital satellite, it's never going to get above 80%. Since it's range is only a couple thousand meters, having a BTDT on something that's only going to be in orbit is useless. I only put them on planes and rovers. In that case, the percentage done has never been more than 0.8% or so for me, as it would take a huge amount of time to scan an entire planet like that, the range is too low. I just fly/drive near the anomalies and get those to show their names and consider it done.

So, my rovers and planes only have the map traq to show the map and a BTDT, and they might not even need a map traq if they have a BTDT either. No sense having any of the other sensors on low altitude vehicles like that, they won't scan at that range anyway. Orbital satellites have the rest of the sensors, and I change the orbit to get the best scanning done, then leave it in orbit or move it to another body in the system if it has enough fuel.

Here's a couple screenshots showing my rovers and the BTDT scan completion. Since these rovers don't have any other sensors on them, those are listed in gray, the BTDT in green and the percentage done. I've visited a few anomalies on Kerbin and driven around quite a bit, plus flown planes around and it's still only at 0.8%. Getting 100% coverage with a BTDT would be quite the feat, and pretty much useless since the only information that it supplies, that I know of, is about structures and anomalies and once you've gotten close enough to scan all of them on a planet, it's pretty pointless to scan the rest of the surface.

OK, spoilers:

Link to picture that contains anomaly.

Link to picture that contains anomaly.

This better shows what I'm trying to illustrate anyway, the BTDT scan progress and status indicator. Not resized, like the above full screenshots are.

You can see the tracks of the few BTDT scans I've done, the largest one being across the north pole where I sent a rover on a long trek, it's the slightly brighter line across the top of the image. There's also a cluster of scans in the desert on the continent to the west of the KSC where another anomaly is.

Edited November 29, 2013 by Dweller_Benthos
Took pictures out completely.

[Dante80]

A suggestion guys, if you can please put anomaly pictures like that as links with a spoiler designation!

[Dweller_Benthos]

I tried, spoilers don't work in this forum.

This should be hidden.

Unless the spoiler code is different here than any other forum I've ever posted to. Besides, those screens don't really tell you where they are, plus, if you're using a mapping plugin like SCANSat, then it will tell you where the anomalies are, so if someone is worried about knowing where they are before finding them, why are they using a mapping plugin? As far as that goes, even using SCANSat, it was a trick to find those, I really doubt anyone has ever just stumbled upon one of them, and been surprised by what they found. Anyone posting to this forum probably knows they exist.

I edited the post to make them thumbnails, best I can do without a functioning spoiler tag.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Dweller_Benthos

[Camacha]

Besides, those screens don't really tell you where they are, plus, if you're using a mapping plugin like SCANSat, then it will tell you where the anomalies are, so if someone is worried about knowing where they are before finding them, why are they using a mapping plugin?

I had not seen these yet and it takes a bit of the fun away of scanning them and then sending a vehicle out to find them. One of the reasons you send a vehicle is that you want to know how it looks and want to discover it yourself.

I edited the post to make them thumbnails, best I can do without a functioning spoiler tag.

Please make them a proper link with the text <spoiler>. That way people can choose to see them.

<Spoiler alert> Picture of anomaly.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I had not seen these yet and it takes a bit of the fun away of scanning them and then sending a vehicle out to find them. One of the reasons you send a vehicle is that you want to know how it looks and want to discover it yourself.

Please make them a proper link with the text <spoiler>. That way people can choose to see them.

<Spoiler alert> Picture of anomaly.

Ah, OK, sorry about that, took them out, though it's a bit late a this point. Again, sorry, didn't realize it was that big of a deal, I figured at this point, the anomalies were all well known and common knowledge.

FYI, if you go looking, you won't find some of them, the new terrain has a few of them buried underground, that bummed me out a bit.

[KerbMav]

I posted a question regarding multiples of the same plugin being active on the same craft.

[Dante80]

Ah, OK, sorry about that, took them out, though it's a bit late a this point. Again, sorry, didn't realize it was that big of a deal, I figured at this point, the anomalies were all well known and common knowledge.

FYI, if you go looking, you won't find some of them, the new terrain has a few of them buried underground, that bummed me out a bit.

Thanks for the edit man. Some of us really want to find those on our own, and not even knowing what a red spot in the map represents on the ground is a lot more fun..C:

[Dweller_Benthos]

Thanks for the edit man. Some of us really want to find those on our own, and not even knowing what a red spot in the map represents on the ground is a lot more fun..C:

Sure, no problem, I was looking for a way to not clog the thread with images.

But, I think I've found, if not a bug, then an irregularity in the big map. If you have it in polar view, and right click an area to zoom in, the zoomed in window gives you the square view instead of the polar view. Makes zooming in at the poles a bit useless as the image is all stretched out.

[Mihara]

I think it would not be inappropriate to show this off here:

See this thread for details. If you wanted to have your maps as part of your IVA, now, thanks to damny's plugin being relatively easy to call externally, you can.

Even though SCANsat is not yet officially finished, it's already a very important plugin in KSP ecosystem.

[nothke]

Oh my God! Exactly what I needed =) any plans on adding runway approach "funnels"?

[Mihara]

Oh my God! Exactly what I needed =) any plans on adding airport approach "funnels"?

No, because I don't know what those are or how to compute them.

I suppose I could add a provision to draw vectors on the map from configurable longitude/latitude points, but it has problems drawing vectors that intersect screen edges (I've been looking for the source of that for hours with no success) so I'm not sure how useful would that be, since you'd need a lot of vectors.

I don't think it's a topic for this thread, though.

[jrandom]

Holy mother of ISA MapSat replacements!

Quick question: does this mod work correctly with the Real Solar System mod (eg. with the 10x larger planetary bodies)? I'm fine with editing .cfg files by hand if any scaling values need to be changed, like scanning altitudes and whatnot.

[simmy2109]

Holy mother of ISA MapSat replacements!

Quick question: does this mod work correctly with the Real Solar System mod (eg. with the 10x larger planetary bodies)? I'm fine with editing .cfg files by hand if any scaling values need to be changed, like scanning altitudes and whatnot.

From what I understand of how the plugin has been described... I think it actually scans the planets it's orbiting for real, so it should scan correctly. This issue might be in displaying the data in a useful way... idk if the "sea-level" altitude is hard-coded or logic-driven. If it's hard-coded, then I think the entire map might be "max altitude" color. If the color scale is logic-driven however, then you might be in business.

[griffin247]

so been using this a few weeks now and wanted to say thnks well done etc and especally iam glad it works so well as i gave up on the other scanner mod

[Ralathon]

Holy mother of ISA MapSat replacements!

Quick question: does this mod work correctly with the Real Solar System mod (eg. with the 10x larger planetary bodies)? I'm fine with editing .cfg files by hand if any scaling values need to be changed, like scanning altitudes and whatnot.

It works correctly. You don't even need to adjust the values in the .part files. I suggest you do though, A range between 100km and 500km orbits is really small in RSS terms. To adjust it just go to the part files and find this module:

MODULE
{
	name = SCANsat
	sensorType = 1
	fov = 5
	min_alt = 50000
	max_alt = 5000000
	best_alt = 1000000
	power = 0.075
	animationName = Dish_Antenna
}

And just add a zero behind the values of min_alt, max_alt and best_alt. RSS rescales by a factor of about 10.5. So rescaling by a factor 10 is good enough.

[jrandom]

Fantastic! Thank you.

Say, would it be possible to modify these values using ModuleManager and a separate .cfg file? That way .cfg files could be packaged with RSS w/out anyone having to directly modify the part .cfg files -- so the updated values wouldn't get overwritten the next time SCANsat gets upgraded.

[Ralathon]

Fantastic! Thank you.

Say, would it be possible to modify these values using ModuleManager and a separate .cfg file? That way .cfg files could be packaged with RSS w/out anyone having to directly modify the part .cfg files -- so the updated values wouldn't get overwritten the next time SCANsat gets upgraded.

Wouldn't be too hard. I CBA to make and test one right now, but I imagine this would work:

@PART[<InsertPartNameHere>]
{
!MODULE[SCANsat]{}

MODULE
{
	name = SCANsat
	sensorType = <Sensortype>
	fov = <NormalFoV>
	min_alt = <NormalMinAlt>*10
	max_alt = <NormalMaxAlt>*10
	best_alt = <NormalBestAlt>*10
	power = <NormalPower>
	animationName = <AnimationName>
}
}

With the <> values adjusted for the appropriate part.

[jrandom]

Wouldn't be too hard. I CBA to make and test one right now, but I imagine this would work:

@PART[<InsertPartNameHere>]
{
!MODULE[SCANsat]{}

MODULE
{
	name = SCANsat
	sensorType = <Sensortype>
	fov = <NormalFoV>
	min_alt = <NormalMinAlt>*10
	max_alt = <NormalMaxAlt>*10
	best_alt = <NormalBestAlt>*10
	power = <NormalPower>
	animationName = <AnimationName>
}
}

With the <> values adjusted for the appropriate part.

It's hard to say if it worked or not. Is there any way to get the min/max/best distances to show up in the scanners' info panel in VAB so I know if my changes via separate config file worked? (Also, this info showing in VAB would just be useful anyways. )

[Hremsfeld]

Got an odd question for ya: Would it be possible to make an "inverted" display of sorts? Not as in inverted colors, but a map that greys out mapped areas while making non-mapped areas some other (preferably bright) color. This would be useful for people trying to brute-force map every single pixel of a world by repeatedly tweaking their orbits, for example.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Got an odd question for ya: Would it be possible to make an "inverted" display of sorts? Not as in inverted colors, but a map that greys out mapped areas while making non-mapped areas some other (preferably bright) color. This would be useful for people trying to brute-force map every single pixel of a world by repeatedly tweaking their orbits, for example.

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.