[0.25] RasterPropMonitor - putting the A in your IVA (v0.18.3) [8 Oct]

[Mihara]

Will it also be possible to set the docking cam?

would make upgrading existing cockpits a lot easier...

It would also be cool, if the only existing docking port would be automatically set as docking cam.

With the example monitor provided in the package here, there's only one page that shows the camera, and it looks for the camera named "DockingPortCam1". Stock docking ports are patched to include JSIExternalCameraSelector module tuned to produce cameras named "DockingPortCam1"..."DockingPortCam8". The first docking port placed will automatically get the camera named "DockingPortCam1" in the currently released version.

So unless I'm misunderstanding you, it's exactly that way already.

[Mihara]

Bump for release.

RasterPropMonitor version 0.8 released.

Bug fixes:

1. JSIActionGroupSwitch would make sounds even if you're out of IVA, which is silly when JSIInternalBackgroundNoise makes a point not to.
   
2. JSIPrimaryFlightDisplay had the icons for direction to target and direction from target backwards.
   

New features:

1. JSIVariableLabel module introduced, to be used when making short variable-based labels that don't warrant the full monitor treatment... though that was out with version 0.7b.
   
2. A small breaking API change before anyone actually releases anything using it -- page handler functions now get the screen size in characters as arguments. If anyone has been using it and not telling me, sorry folks.
   
3. JSIExternalCameraSelector now displays a rough indication of where the camera is pointing while in the editor, (it's "rough" because it does not reflect the final field of view and uses the default of 60 degrees, since external camera parts can't know what it will be) and allows you to select the camera ID during construction. Mouse over the camera and press space to do increment the ID. Hold down U to display the fields of view of all bolt-on cameras. Camera IDs are selected in order as you add parts. (Except when you're adding parts in symmetry, in which case all symmetric parts start out with the same ID and changing it breaks symmetry.) This works for the cameras patched the into stock docking ports by the enclosed package as well. It might still be a little buggy, so if you break it, I'd love to see exact steps to replication.
   
4. Monitors and internal light switches, as well as the background noise module now require electric charge to work. They do NOT actually consume power -- I believe ModuleCommand's electric charge consumption is sufficient to reflect the power needs of flight instruments, and you should mess with that number instead -- they just shut down as ElectricCharge falls below 0.01 units. There's an option to turn that requirement off.
   
5. A few more new variables -- total effective ISP of all active engines, maneuver node burn time, pod temperature, support for ECLSS-specific resource names, and maybe something else that I missed.
   

This version is still perfectly compatible with ALCOR 0.6 everything else that's currently in the works that I know of should still work with no change.

I'm still thinking about how to get SCANsat integrated. It's relatively easy to do now, but SCANsat maps render fairly slowly and I'm not yet settled on how to set up the rendering requests in such a way that they're consistently useful.

[Themorris]

With the example monitor provided in the package here, there's only one page that shows the camera, and it looks for the camera named "DockingPortCam1". Stock docking ports are patched to include JSIExternalCameraSelector module tuned to produce cameras named "DockingPortCam1"..."DockingPortCam8". The first docking port placed will automatically get the camera named "DockingPortCam1" in the currently released version.

So unless I'm misunderstanding you, it's exactly that way already.

Now, thats cool. I've patched up the mk1-2 pod a bit with the displays, and I guess it was the old version, that prevented me from using the docking cam. I'll try it again.

thanks

Themorris

[Nuke]

definitely going to use this

[rhoark]

So how feasible would kOS in IVA be with this?

[Mihara]

So how feasible would kOS in IVA be with this?

Introducing a page handler that would give kOS a function to print stuff out onto the monitor is easy, almost to the point of being trivial, (the only nontriviality is "so what do I do if there's more than one monitor with such a page?") though I have no clue how useful would that be. Actually intercepting the entire kOS monitor is impractical unless the author of kOS codes for it, though it should be perfectly possible.

Since 0.7, it's been possible to make an entire keyboard with keypresses being passed to the page handler, even, so if you can get the kOS monitor onto the screen, it should be no problem to make the user click on keyboard keys to communicate with it, although I don't recommend it unless you're a masochist.

[angusmcbeth]

KOS programs can detect action group buttons, so a monitor with five action group buttons either side could be used to control a KOS program. Kinda like the menu driven software used on a high street cash machine.

[Camacha]

Yeah, kOS development seems to be at a bit of a standstill, so I guess that will have to wait. I am enjoying using it together with the ALCOR as-is though

[Mihara]

KOS programs can detect action group buttons, so a monitor with five action group buttons either side could be used to control a KOS program. Kinda like the menu driven software used on a high street cash machine.

As far as I could see from a cursory examination of the source (where's the canonical documentation on that aspect of kOS anyway?) there's no API for triggering events inside kOS, the only thing you can do is present a function that a kOS program can call.

So I can implement a page handler that a) gives kOS a function to print stuff to a monitor and gets keypresses from the monitor's extra keys (on ALCOR new MFDs these are the up-down-enter-esc buttons, you can have a more or less unlimited number of buttons like that) and keeps them, and presents another function to the kOS program which tells it if a given key ID has been pressed recently or not.

This way you wouldn't even need to take up the valuable action groups.

[Justin8Ball]

Is there something wrong with your download?

[Mihara]

Is there something wrong with your download?

...Pardon me but that question is incomplete, it is not clear whom it is addressed to or what it refers to exactly.

[Justin8Ball]

When i try to download it the site won't load and a pop up comes up. It only has been happening with your download. Every other kerbal mod I have been downloading has gone smoothly. I was just wondering if anyone else was having this problem to?

[Mihara]

When i try to download it the site won't load and a pop up comes up. It only has been happening with your download. Every other kerbal mod I have been downloading has gone smoothly. I was just wondering if anyone else was having this problem to?

I have just tried it myself and it downloaded just fine, both from a window logged into MediaFire and from an incognito window.

But it's not like MediaFire is the only place I can keep it. Here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/532373/RasterPropMonitor%200.8.zip

Mind you, this particular link will eventually be gone.

[Justin8Ball]

Thank you. I appreciate it. This mod is an awesome one. Keep up the good work.

[Mihara]

A call for support:

I'm debugging SCANsat integration. That is, the very first prototype even works, but I'm not sure it's actually getting the data. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to play KSP at all in the past month with all this coding.

Could anyone produce a save file with no vessels at all in it, but Kerbin having been scanned in as much detail as possible? That would save me quite some time.

EDIT: That should get you interested.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Mihara

[sirkut]

ZOMG. I wished I didn't delete my saves to start over!

[DasBananenbrot]

A call for support:

I'm debugging SCANsat integration. That is, the very first prototype even works, but I'm not sure it's actually getting the data. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to play KSP at all in the past month with all this coding.

Could anyone produce a save file with no vessels at all in it, but Kerbin having been scanned in as much detail as possible? That would save me quite some time.

EDIT: That should get you interested.

Too bad I haven't installed SCANsat yet although I wanted to do so for a while now. Also don't have time now. But either way that looks awesome. You earned yourself a massive amount of cookies for all the hard work you have put into this astonishing plugin, so here you go

Edited November 27, 2013 by DasBananenbrot

[Mihara]

Well, there's still a lot I need to do before I can say it works, but I'll say it's progress:

[MrTheBull]

Oh, god. It looks awesom!

[Mihara]

Well, here's more awesome:

I think that's about as awesome as it gets, though. SCANsat assumes that pixels are square (that is, if the monitor's texture is 512x256, the monitor itself is twice as wide as it is tall) which wasn't the case on my test display. While it is possible in theory to correct for this, I am getting lost in the details, so I guess that's where I write up the manual and publish it as is.

And for the same reason, I'm not going to do projections of orbits either, if anyone's up to it, patches welcome.

[zekes]

does this work for the IVA of the Mk III Cockpit? You know the big one that someone made a cockpit for?

[MrTheBull]

Mihara, is there any way to set two text pages on one screen?

[Mihara]

does this work for the IVA of the Mk III Cockpit? You know the big one that someone made a cockpit for?

That was TouhouTorpedo, if my memory serves me right.

There's no reason it wouldn't work, but this package does not put it in there, since I myself neither have it nor use it. Since it's a mod IVA in the first place, why don't you ask TouhouTorpedo to redo it using the plugin instead?

Mihara, is there any way to set two text pages on one screen?

Side-by-side and separately controlled? You can have one prop containing multiple monitors on different transforms that look like they're one screen, it should work. If you just want to merge information from two pages, it's best to edit the page definition file instead. If you want more text on the screen, just increase screen sizes or make a smaller font.

I also thought about making a page handler that would select between pages based on a variable, but I am not sure this is a particularly good idea.

[MOARdV]

This isn't specific to the plugin, but I would like to add some monitors to the KOSMOS VA capsule interior. I have the module manager stuff configured right, I can get something appearing inside, so I know that much of it works. I'm guessing the rotation is a quaternion, and I'm dusting off the brain cells that used to know how to convert angles to quaternions. But how do I determine the position and rotation to position it, besides guess-and-check? Is there a tool I can use to do this visually / interactively, or do I need to iterate placement and rotations values in a text editor and restart / reload in the game until it looks right?

[Nazari1382]

You should be able to load that into Unity and save the prop positions to the internal cfg, Moardv.