[0.22] ISA MapSat 4.0 Dev Build

[pina_coladas]

This is awesome, but I am a bit confused. I unpacked everything into my ksp folder (did a fresh install and kept the ksp_win folder name). Parts and plugins went into the proper folders, the isa_RAM_Mapper folder is right there where it should be in the root ksp folder. I built a probe that included your yellow antenna part (on the last stage) and sent it into a low munar orbit (just under 4000m). I left it for a while on 1x time acceleration, in flight view to be sure the terrain was being loaded, and nothing happens. My isa_RAM_Mapper folder remains empty save for the exe, and of course opening it has no effect.

What did I screw up??

[SmiteZero]

So just to confirm this of course only operates to write the .csv while the ship is the actively controlled ship, right?

[dvc]

This is awesome, but I am a bit confused. I unpacked everything into my ksp folder (did a fresh install and kept the ksp_win folder name). Parts and plugins went into the proper folders, the isa_RAM_Mapper folder is right there where it should be in the root ksp folder. I built a probe that included your yellow antenna part (on the last stage) and sent it into a low munar orbit (just under 4000m). I left it for a while on 1x time acceleration, in flight view to be sure the terrain was being loaded, and nothing happens. My isa_RAM_Mapper folder remains empty save for the exe, and of course opening it has no effect.

What did I screw up??

Same story here...

4km 80° orbit

stage 0 gold antenna attached.

no data is generated.

---edit---

Ok you have to be around 3500m ASL, but i dont know if its safe...

[toastar]

You need to have under 4k orbit, I didn\'t start getting good data until I got the entire orbit under 3.5KM.

My current mapping mission has a periapsis of about 2.95KM and a apoapsis of about 3.1KM

Of course, The highest point I\'ve mapped so far is about 2.7KM.

I can basically only see about 1.5KM Below the ship, so If your above 4.2KM you won\'t detect anything.

Try slamming into the planet really slowly and see if you get anything.

The way I tell if it\'s working is looking at mechjeb, If the true altitude is different then ASL altitude it should record.

Also It doesn\'t seem to record in map mode.

Here\'s my preliminary maps

http://imgur.com/dbFA3

http://imgur.com/HMLqU

I wasn\'t able to get the tool to work.

I may use a better grid tool when I get more data.

----

It\'s going to take about 9 days to map at this rate >.>

[dvc]

I wasn\'t able to get the tool to work.

what did you use?

[togfox]

Mine is generating data but the map gen thing doesn\'t work. When I dbl click it, it just does a windows crash thing. Probably something to do with my system.

A CFG allowing a colon instead of a semi-colon would be great. I\'m not sure if mapgen requires a semi-colon but I use a different mapping proggy and csv files are all the rage these days.

Awesome mod. I\'ll have to make you and Corax members of the Kerbil geographic society. :-)

[togfox]

Ppl need to start posting there ISA RAM data files in this thread so I can d/l them all and make a singe gigantic map of the Mun.

Seriously - post your files. It doesn\'t matter what orbit you choose or what height. Just post them. I don\'t need to know where you flew - my map program will tell me exactly where you flew.

Lets share datafiles and get the Mun mapped. 8)

[dvc]

heres mine..

but what soft did you use to generate your images?

---edit---

btw im going to run mapper for another 10 hours or it will crash because of low orbit (3200m @ 80° inclination)

[togfox]

My map gen is working now - after a reboot.

I use quikgrid (old but free) but it doesn\'t accept this format unfortunately.

Thanks for the file. The more ppl post attachments the better. 8)

[dvc]

Thats quality ;D

[Innsewerants]

Looks cool . But why doesn\'t thi work with Kerbin?

You can\'t orbit low enough on kerbin due to the atmosphere, when you\'re high enough the collision max drops detail, a little higher still and it disappears, there\'s just nothing to measure unless you are well below 15km on kerbin.

The game doesn\'t load high poly collision terrain until you reach a point where the game thinks it\'s needed because you might impact or try to land. To save resources and keep performance up.

So essentially if you are high enough (and on kerbin still well within thick atmosphere) there is no terrain, just an optical planet not one I can scan.

I will keep looking for ways around that.

Wont work and I put the files in my KSP folder.

That\'s not enough information to do anything with. How about checking console in game alt-f2 and giving me whatever errors it might spam on it, or if its the mapgen run it in console and copy/paste the exception it\'s given. I can\'t do anything based on nothing which is what you just gave me

Couple thoughts,

4. Looking Mechjeb, I\'m guessing I can\'t record in map mode.

5. Just brain storming: Maybe the output file could be the name of the celestial body your orbiting. I.e. Mun.csv and Kerbin.csv.

6. I wonder what A good height for a polar orbit.

7. GMT could be used on the mac to the mapping.

4 - No map view causes useless data so my code prevents recording when in map view. You can use map fine it will just not record while you are in it.

5 - Unless I packed an old module by mistake the csv is already name for the celestial body 'isa_RAM_Mun_Data.csv'. So if any other planets come along or I find a way to map kerbin you\'ll get isa_RAM_Kerbin_Data.csv and isa_RAM_planetx_Data.csv etc.

When that happens I will bring out an update because currently it\'s just disabled for other bodies as there are none that can be scanned atm/

6 - the image in my signature is fresh data collected overnight by a polar sat orbiting 3500-3800 km, hasn\'t hit terrain while I was sleeping and gathers a good portion of elevations, I will add more sats to append to the data when this one has 'finished'

7 - You\'ll have to explain what you mean to this coding newby

This is awesome, but I am a bit confused. I unpacked everything into my ksp folder (did a fresh install and kept the ksp_win folder name). Parts and plugins went into the proper folders, the isa_RAM_Mapper folder is right there where it should be in the root ksp folder. I built a probe that included your yellow antenna part (on the last stage) and sent it into a low munar orbit (just under 4000m). I left it for a while on 1x time acceleration, in flight view to be sure the terrain was being loaded, and nothing happens. My isa_RAM_Mapper folder remains empty save for the exe, and of course opening it has no effect.

What did I screw up??

-Is the stage the part is in active?

-Do you run the terrain options very low? The code has a minimal level-of-detail of the terrain check.

-Is the sat low enough? at 4.0 km it will only find high enough areas now and then so you might have to wait for it to find a high spot or drop a little lower.

-you can check console (alt-f2) if it is spamming errors.

So just to confirm this of course only operates to write the .csv while the ship is the actively controlled ship, right?

Yes, I could have it active always but if you arent the active flight and close to the mun the game wont load the collision mesh or will load a simple low detail flat-ish collision mesh for the mun so scanning that would just turn out bad data.

Same story here...

4km 80° orbit

stage 0 gold antenna attached.

no data is generated.

---edit---

Ok you have to be around 3500m ASL, but i dont know if its safe...

The last part is not really true, or my sig image wouldnt exist.

You can scan from any orbital height but if the terrain directly below you isn\'t high enough it will read -1 or your orbital altitude (this is the game not my mapper code) I scanned the highly elevated polar region with a 4 - 4.2 km satellite.

The terrain gets to high enough detail and spawned +/- when you aren\'t more than 2000 m above it so recording 3 km high terrain on the poles from 4.5km alt works fine but scanning 1 km high terrain from 4.5km alt wont work.

Like I suggested if you really want to map it all, have a polar higher safer sat to get most of it, my sig data was gathered overnight by a sat currently at 3550-3800 but it scanned half of it yesterday while at 4-4.2km.

It\'s the height above terrain that seems to make the game decide if it loads collision mesh and at what level of detail. That\'s why my orbit path on the sig image has gaps, those are spots where the terrain wasn\'t high enough to be measured or the game decided to drop below minimal detail level or lose the collision mesh.

same for toastar. the middle of the mun is pretty low terrain compaired to the poles. that;\'s why I suggested a higher safer polar sat for high terrain and other sats to record the lower terrain from the less safe orbits.

Mine is generating data but the map gen thing doesn\'t work. When I dbl click it, it just does a windows crash thing. Probably something to do with my system.

A CFG allowing a colon instead of a semi-colon would be great. I\'m not sure if mapgen requires a semi-colon but I use a different mapping proggy and csv files are all the rage these days.

Awesome mod. I\'ll have to make you and Corax members of the Kerbil geographic society. :-)

run it from command line and let me know what it says, it will give a file not found but I don\'t know how to work windows interfaces yet, so if it does file not found from a windows double click it wont show a nice dialog (yet)

the ; and . for decimal is currently hardcoded for the mapper and mapgen. I will think about it but I\'d have to change a lot around in the code.

You could do a replace all with notepad++ e.g. to make the csv compatible with other programs, takes 1 second.

I would be honored to be a member of the Kerbil Geographic Society

Ppl need to start posting there ISA RAM data files in this thread so I can d/l them all and make a singe gigantic map of the Mun.

Seriously - post your files. It doesn\'t matter what orbit you choose or what height. Just post them. I don\'t need to know where you flew - my map program will tell me exactly where you flew.

Lets share datafiles and get the Mun mapped. 8)

I\'m thinking about making a community project to collect csv\'s and consolidate them, but a complete data set would be 11gb without any duplicate measurements atm. I kind of want to keep the option to generate 2048 maps at least and thinking of putting in an option to render e.g. a map of a region which would need that 2 decimal detail data.

Just to make it clear again you can map from 4+ km but you will only fetch data at times when the terrain below you is in range.

For people that use mechjeb you can spy on this somewhat, whenever true alt isn\'t simply your asl reading it\'s in range.

The mapper does some more checks than just that though but it\'s a good indicator when it\'s scanning.

It will also ouput started scanning and stopped scanning to the console everytime it does.

I\'m thinking if I get around to a dedicated part model I might try and make that have a light that\'s on when scanning.

If you have problems and want to help me fix them (It\'s my first c# learning project after all) please do the following:

if it\'s the module in ksp:

Check the console alt-f2 and if it\'s spamming something there. If so send me what errors is spamming so I can find out whats happening.

If you don\'t get data remember it scans when the terrain below you is in range not simply below a cerain altitude. A 4.5 km sat will mostly only scan around the high polar region and not while crossing the lowlands around the middle.

if it\'s the mapgen

Run from command line so you can see if it spits out a file not found or if it crashes what the exception is it gives, these usually show me the way to whats wrong.

[RC1062]

That sig...

It hurts!

Why did you keep directing me to it?! S:|

(Keep up the good work! )

[togfox]

11 gig - oh contraire!

This image was created with just 120kbytes of data!

Extrapolation my friend. We don\'t need to map every single square metre. Completely by co-incidence, I mapped the equator while dvc mapped 80 deg inclination. He zig-zagged and I went through the middle - just by luck. Extrapolate that out and you get the image attached for well under a meg of data.

[Innsewerants]

I think it\'s more that it is optimized to operate at an altitude of 4000m or lower, which is inherently unsafe orbit height in atmosphere. You might try attaching one to a plane and fly a level spiral or switchback search pattern and see what happens.

If this app were rewritten in Java, we Mac users could run it without much issue.

It\'s not optimized to work at any altitude, it checks the collision mesh detail and if it can get radar altitude readings from it, In short it cares about altitude above terrain not the orbital altitude indicated at the top of the screen as that really says nothing about actual altitude above the terrain. if they add a plateau 10km high to the mun and you orbit the mun at 12 km it will scan the plateau fine, just not the rest as it would be out of range, most of this is because of how ksp works not my module, So far I\'ve only been able to prevent bad data collecting due to whatever the game is doing, I haven\'t been able to force the game to do my bidding so I can\'t change these limitations at the moment

[Innsewerants]

11 gig - oh contraire!

This image was created with just 120kbytes of data!

Extrapolation my friend. We don\'t need to map every single square metre. Completely by co-incidence, I mapped the equator while dvc mapped 80 deg inclination. He zig-zagged and I went through the middle - just by luck. Extrapolate that out and you get the image attached for well under a meg of data.

Yes but what does that say about the accuracy

Please keep in mind it\'s also a learning project for me.

Learning c#, mapping and making a ksp modules in less than a week . My accuracy is over the top for a game planet but I want to learn from doing this.

I could make mine fill out the blanks using just the bit of data available I guess but hmm wasn\'t really what I was after.

I can render a full and inaccurate (you can\'t consolidate data that\'s not there.) map now with my mapgen at 50px wide and blow it up to get more or less the same result.

One of the idea\'s is to be a bit like srtm and provide data not images, I just happen to have written an image tool to accompany it as well And just saying I\'m still regularly looking up how basic stuff works in c# regularly, I\'ve been a c# coder now for all but 4 maybe 5 days starting without knowing a word of it lol

extrapolation.. I might add that as an option if I figure it out

I just don\'t like it, that will not tell you about any unexpected cliffs, it will not predict small craters, (actually im missing craters I mapped in your image but your image makes it seem like its been mapped..)

But then I wrote it all this way so people can do with their csv\'s what they want So keep going with that tool if you like it I like the elevation lines, might add that when I figure out how to

Today is breaktime, worked on it since thursday, tomorrow I will start and see if/what requests there are or what I would request of myself and work on some features to be added unless major bugs pop up that need to be fixed

[togfox]

Keep at it. Though you really need to remove the semi-colon or not call the files csv files. Picky and perdantic - I know - but csv files are, well, they have comma\'s.

I\'ve found that 3,800 metres is too high for a scan. I\'m only getting the peaks and the average ground level is below the scanning range. I\'m 3,500 makes a big improvement and I\'m going to have to risk mountain and peak to scan at that altitude. Sorry Jeb!!

[BamBam]

wow! actual science mission.

now, we have to figure out how to show the long/lat on the generated map data.

then when we get new planets we will be all set to map them out and choose a landing site.

now im off to build a munar reconnaissance orbiter.

im am not clear on how to generate the map from the data file once i have enough data.

[EDF]

This is so sexy that it\'s not even funny, Seriously! :-*

[toastar]

Keep at it. Though you really need to remove the semi-colon or not call the files csv files. Picky and perdantic - I know - but csv files are, well, they have comma\'s.

I\'ve found that 3,800 metres is too high for a scan. I\'m only getting the peaks and the average ground level is below the scanning range. I\'m 3,500 makes a big improvement and I\'m going to have to risk mountain and peak to scan at that altitude. Sorry Jeb!!

He he I thought that too, But who cares, data is data.

Speaking of here is mine.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62434044/isa_RAM_Mun_Data.csv

More to come.

What would be cool is to show a Contour map on top of the bitmap texture file.

[toastar]

4 - No map view causes useless data so my code prevents recording when in map view. You can use map fine it will just not record while you are in it.

Yeah I figured this was a game limitation

5 - Unless I packed an old module by mistake the csv is already name for the celestial body 'isa_RAM_Mun_Data.csv'. So if any other planets come along or I find a way to map kerbin you\'ll get isa_RAM_Kerbin_Data.csv and isa_RAM_planetx_Data.csv etc.

When that happens I will bring out an update because currently it\'s just disabled for other bodies as there are none that can be scanned atm/

I\'m an idiot.

7 - You\'ll have to explain what you mean to this coding newby

It\'s cartography thing not a programming thing. GMT(Generic Mapping Tools) is a unix based mapping program. A lot of it\'s users are MAC users.

http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/

[togfox]

Wow - toastars is is accurate - not much extrapolation here.

Attached.

[AlexTheStampede]

It dosen\'t seem to save anything at all? No csv or any other file in KSP folder.... I\'m kinda puzzled. Plugin is there, part is there (and attached). If I try to map bits of Kerbin while I take off, no file. If i make a 'Google StreetView-ish' car I get no file... what\'s going wrong? I even made all of KSP folder and subfolders fully read/write!

[SmiteZero]

I unfortunately keep getting crashes after about 30 or 40 minutes. When orbiting that low at that speed, I often have framerate glitches loading the terrain. Add to that the continuous stream of data being written to disk and I\'m orbiting at 2fps and think it\'s filling up my swap space and crashing or something.

Tips, perhaps? :\'(

[PakledHostage]

The Innsewerants Space Agency is very happy to present the RAM satellite mapping module and map generation tool.

Congratulations on getting this done! Excellent work!

It also checks the detail level of the collision mesh and doesn\'t record if it\'s too low. So people with very low settings in options might have a problem getting it to scan, not sure.

I ran into this problem while developing my own mapping plugin (I\'m running KSP on a very marginal computer), but I\'m glad to see that others were able to get it working. I guess I\'m the Kerbal equivalent of the Canadian Space Agency - lots of ambition but limited by my budget...

An idea that I did manage to get working was scanning the 'radar/laser' beam back and forth through a ±40° arc about the heading vector, rather than just sampling the distance to the terrain directly below the spacecraft. Sampling this way increases the resolution of the data because you get more data points. And it doesn\'t actually take very many lines of code to do because it uses Unity\'s built-in quaternion rotation identity function. Let me know by PM if you would like me to give you the code to rotate the radar/laser beam for your project.

This sample map shows data acquired using the scanning radar while flying NW out of KSC. Lowest elevations are dark blue while highest elevations are red. Black pixels are 'no data' pixels. You can just make out the coastline and the mountains to the NW of KSC in the image.

PH.

[EDF]

well shit, It\'s sort of broken for me. It says it can\'t find the .cvs file but it is clearly there.

Attaching the file.