[0.22] ISA MapSat 4.0 Dev Build

[Teirusu]

Hmm, thanks Laminator. After reading that though, I'm wondering if it would work to simply MKLINK /D (the Windows equivalent of ln -s) the old directory path to the new one... gonna try this:

cd KSP_win\PluginData

mklink /d ISA_MapSat ..\Plugins\PluginData\ISA_MapSat

...and see what happens.

EDIT: It works! I can now resume kerballing through the cosmos while waiting patiently for the next ISA MapSat update.

This works great! Here's a program for those that don't like having to use command-line stuff: http://dirlinker.codeplex.com/

Whoa.. the poles look awesome with normal mapping!

[Innsewerants]

Just added some options to the settings menu to allow you to tweak the scan routine to your liking/tech specs.

The Scan resolution default starts at 200 measurements per scan. 100 is where it was at in the screenshots I posted earlier and most of that was mapped at 50x timewarp.

With my cpu downclocked to 2.2 ghz from 3.0 ghz and a setting of 500 I get acceptable performance and my first passes on Mun were fully solid except for really close to the poles in the rectangular projection. I'll explain more in the blog later.

I also added the option to change the time interval between autosaving the map that's being scanned, the default is 120 seconds. I've set it to 300 for myself as it saves any maps that have changes when you press pause too. Which also won't freeze badly any more like before.

The third option I added so far is the ability to switch on or off the new feature "AutoUpdate Hilo.dat"

This feature will update hilo.dat if it finds new planets. You'd only really need it if I don't update mapsat for a new ksp release that has new planets it would also allow you to edit the dat file (it's plain text) and remove a planet if squad changed the terrain so it will check again for the highest and lowest elevations.

I will always continue with having an "official" hilo.dat included with new releases but I thought it would be nice to have anyway for the users.

Updating Hilo.dat may take up to a few minutes depending on your machine and makes ksp look frozen, it's not.

Turning this on will not make it freeze every time, just if there are new planets. So in one way you will rarely need it, but in another it won't harm you having it turned on. Default is off.

It's looking good for a dev release today (it's 11:29am right now here). I will work a bit more and I guess next you'll hear from me will be on the blog with the dev version and updates and stuff.

Cheers!

[Laminator]

I really love this addon. Thx once more Innsewerants for this great contribution to the KSP community!

Dev-version sounds great . I´m very curious about the new stuff we soon will get our hands on, especially scan bar options.

What makes this addon so great imho is the RAW-option that opens up a whole new area of "scientific work" for the interestet Kerbal scientists:

Shaded map of Kerbin made with Surfer

Map with hightlines, also made in Surfer

3d-map made in Voxler

[Richy teh space man]

Keep up the great work with this mod, I can't wait to try it out!

[Schnatta]

Maybe the best mod for the whole game. Especially the raw data. More options sounds very nice. Would it be possible to configure ingame map colors per body? For example kerbin natural, mun greyscale etc?

After all, can't wait for 4.0, even it's a developers version. Thanks so much for your great work and this awesome addon!

Edited May 24, 2013 by Schnatta

[Dweller_Benthos]

Maybe the best mod for the whole game. Especially the raw data. More options sounds very nice. Would it be possible to configure ingame map colors per body? For example kerbin natural, mun greyscale etc?

After all, can't wait for 4.0, even it's a developers version. Thanks so much for your great work and this awesome addon!

I would like this too. The current rainbow effect is nice to see all the elevations, but having something that looks more natural for general display would be cool. Or even a way to pick and choose what colors are used for each elevation so that certain terrain features could be enhanced or muted.

[TelluriumCrystal]

Is there any chance of a mac-friendly Mapgen being released?

[ngianoplus]

Is this mod going to be updated ever again or is it done? I know it works. but I feel like some more work could go into it.

[tek_604]

Is this mod going to be updated ever again or is it done? I know it works. but I feel like some more work could go into it.

Sorry to sound mean, but did you even read the thread? On page 97, Innsewerants said he is working on it. Even has a link to his blog, so you can follow its progress:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/blog.php/16471-Innsewerants

[Innsewerants]

tek_604 Just ignore people that don't read, I do I must have posted 3 or 4 times today keeping the thread up to date for a coming dev build release today.. and then someone comes along and ask such a question. Just ignore it

Anyhow, the blog post is up with the dev build and a lengthy post about the changes since the last blog update enjoy!

[tek_604]

OMG! Shiny!

Just downloaded, plonked the folder in the GameData (as per instructions), and BINGO! Lovely. Time to reboot the Kerbal Space Administration! Although Kethane hasn't been updated, MapSat was the one I was waiting really waiting for before making a decision to continue my 0.19 or start afresh. Start afresh it is. No biggie

Oh! Can I safely assume that the parts will be forward compatible? Just wondering, in case I have to launch my probes again

[Schnatta]

WOOT! Wow, thats really great. Thx for your hard work. The new options and the 0.20 implementation are really great! Now it's time to generate some awesome maps. Thank you for this addon.

[Richy teh space man]

The latest updates working well so far, great job!

[daver4470]

I am torn by the simultaneous joy that there's a dev build of the new Mapsat 4.0 and pain that I now have to abandon my old maps when I had just managed to map at least half the Kerbin system..... Nah, who am I kidding? Big maps always win!

ISA, I have to admit that I'm a bit confused by the whole beam width-scan detail options. You're saying that the optimum setting are, basically, processor-dependent, based on how efficiently your rig can process a given number of scans in a single frame? Am I correct in interpreting this as meaning a better processor can do a wide-beam scan with fine resolution at a higher altitude (and therefore scan the whole planet lickety-split) without slowing the physics to a crawl? I guess I understand the basic methodology, but don't understand how to play with the parameters to optimize scanning. (This is without installing the new version yet, by the way -- maybe it's more obvious when you actually play around with it?)

[Poddster]

Hmm, thanks Laminator. After reading that though, I'm wondering if it would work to simply MKLINK /D (the Windows equivalent of ln -s) the old directory path to the new one... gonna try this:

cd KSP_win\PluginData

mklink /d ISA_MapSat ..\Plugins\PluginData\ISA_MapSat

...and see what happens.

EDIT: It works! I can now resume kerballing through the cosmos while waiting patiently for the next ISA MapSat update.

I was thinking about doing this myself, not specific to ISA map sat, but for all the mods. Anyway, thanks for putting this here as I couldn't really understand what Laminator was saying, but who can't understand a nice mklink?

Innsewerants -- can't wait for the proper release! I echo the support for moving the icon though, as I like the 'big ui' option.

[Schnatta]

The scan resolution is a very heavy feature. It's quiet easy to generate high detailled maps via raw data with a resolution >200, but when I try a 400 resolution and a 500km orbit, my cpu doesn't gets it anymore, and its a i5 at 4 GHz. Looks like there is a huge data amount then. But after all high resolution maps are made much, much quicker than with the 3.34 version. Mostly the very high rsolutions are not needed. Im working with 150 now on 220km orbits and i do not have any lag problems and the maps are much more detailled with just one run than doing it with 3.34. The new routines are awesome!

Storing raw data only without direct ingame scanning has a much better perfomance.

Edited May 24, 2013 by Schnatta

[Laminator]

WOW!

Dev-version looks really great so far! Right now I´m fiddling around with scan-resolution and orbit altitudes to get a better understanding for future mapping missions. Really like it! Very promising results on my first tries.

There is only one thing remaining for future improvements (besides the stuff you talk about in your blog off course ): an option to scale the interface while scanning would be absolutely super kerbalogantic awesome!!

I mean, when I scan a planet, i´m only interested in the map that is magically appearing on my screen, not the 3d world surrounding it . So it would be great to have e.g. buttons that make the actual map-window standard, 2x and 4x it´s normal size. This way we could enjoy the maps even more

Thanks, great work! And maybe you could keep scalable interface in the back of your head for rainy days;)

[Schnatta]

So it would be great to have e.g. buttons that make the actual map-window standard, 2x and 4x it´s normal size.

Yeah! The higher resolution maps and zoomfunction is already great. With bigger window and if possible a satellite centered toggable view would be .... woooooot

[Innsewerants]

The scan resolution is a very heavy feature. It's quiet easy to generate high detailled maps via raw data with a resolution >200, but when I try a 400 resolution and a 500km orbit, my cpu doesn't gets it anymore, and its a i5 at 4 GHz. Looks like there is a huge data amount then. But after all high resolution maps are made much, much quicker than with the 3.34 version. Mostly the very high rsolutions are not needed. Im working with 150 now on 220km orbits and i do not have any lag problems and the maps are much more detailled with just one run than doing it with 3.34. The new routines are awesome!

Storing raw data only without direct ingame scanning has a much better perfomance.

It's not really the visual scanning causing this, it's directly related to writing the csv file. As I explained shortly in the change log and the blog post csv writing atm will likely be horror, I have not tended to it all since I increased the resolutions apart from changing the save interval from 15s to 5s.

I don't recommend the csv writing feature in the dev build atm. Giving csv writing some love is on the planned list.

WOW!

[..] map-window standard, 2x and 4x it´s normal size. This way we could enjoy the maps even more

Thanks, great work! And maybe you could keep scalable interface in the back of your head for rainy days;)

&

Yeah! The higher resolution maps and zoomfunction is already great. With bigger window and if possible a satellite centered toggable view would be .... woooooot

I've put this on the to do/explore list. Thanks for the suggestion

Edited May 24, 2013 by Innsewerants

[Schnatta]

It's not really the visual scanning causing this, it's directly related to writing the csv file.

Im not sure about this, cause I dont have any lags when writing raw data only. Also with a resolution of 500 and orbits > 200 i do not have any lags when writing raw data. But whenever I activate the visual scan with resolution > 300, I got lags. I had the same effect on 3.34 and its reproducable. I dont know if this matters, my raw data will be stored on a very fast SSD.

Do you know why the ISAMapGen crashes when generating maps with 36000x18000 pix? I tried this, cause of this would be the maximum resolution of the map and every pixel would be 0.01degree, but everytime I try it, the exe crashes.

Another question about the csv, the raw data stores every dot twice or multiple if it's passed more than one time, right?

Did some more test on mun now. Okay, it's not the optical scan or the raw data. I tried a resolution of 500 with an orbit of 300. When scanning optical only I do not have any lag. When writing raw data only, I also do not have any lag. But whenever I do an optical scan and writing raw data, it's lagging like hell. To do both at once, I need to take the resolution down to 250, then I'm able to do both at once without loosing performance.

Edited May 24, 2013 by Schnatta

[Innsewerants]

I am torn by the simultaneous joy that there's a dev build of the new Mapsat 4.0 and pain that I now have to abandon my old maps when I had just managed to map at least half the Kerbin system..... Nah, who am I kidding? Big maps always win!

ISA, I have to admit that I'm a bit confused by the whole beam width-scan detail options. You're saying that the optimum setting are, basically, processor-dependent, based on how efficiently your rig can process a given number of scans in a single frame? Am I correct in interpreting this as meaning a better processor can do a wide-beam scan with fine resolution at a higher altitude (and therefore scan the whole planet lickety-split) without slowing the physics to a crawl? I guess I understand the basic methodology, but don't understand how to play with the parameters to optimize scanning. (This is without installing the new version yet, by the way -- maybe it's more obvious when you actually play around with it?)

I'll try and explain a bit more. I'm sorry if I come across robotic, I'm deathly tired now.

First of everything of course always depends on hardware, no matter how good or bad my good there will be a limit somewhere where you notice fps drops beyond acceptable levels

The new scanning routing doesn't use a square grid of points any more instead trading that for a line that adjusts it's orientation to keep it optimal for whatever direction you are tracking over ground.

This "scanline" consists of measurement points spread out evenly. The number of points used equals the scan resolution setting.

If you think of this as the horizontal axis there is no real vertical axis because I dropped the grid. The "vertical" axis (direction we're moving across the ground) resolution depends on how much time it takes to finish a scanline. It won't pause between scans but scans themselves take time. not a lot but well ksp has timewarping.

How fast a scanline is finished depends mainly on 2 things, the amount of measurements in it (the scan resolution setting) and how fast your computer gets it done.

(all the other ksp stuff/frame needs to run too so keep that in mind.)

now say with all things considered a frame takes you 16.7 milliseconds. That's just under 60 fps.

So my scanline gets to scan once each 200 measuring points each 16.7 milliseconds.

At normal time speed and 2000 m/s over ground there's a spacing between 2 scanlines of 33.4 m. Sweet that's tiny and will look pretty much solid on the map.

But we have timewarp, so lets crack it up to 50x.

Now because there is no real timewarp, for mapsat timewarp is just faster motion, we're traveling 50x2000= 100000 m/s over ground. and between 2 scanlines are 0.0167*100000=1670m, that's still really good for the gui maps 1 pixel vertically/latitude on kerbins rectangular map represents about 1841m, horizontally/longitude it variates greatly because of map distortion.

Now say 1 ms of the 16.7 ms total frame time is my scan with 200 measuring points and we set it to 500 because we think we want more resolution in the scanline and we assume this simply also linearly increases the time it takes for the scan to finish for simplicity's sake.

now our frames take about 19.2ms to finish.

The resolution in the scanline has increased but our resolution in the form of time between scans has increased.

At 1x speed the space between scans has only increased to 38.4 meters, but at 50x the space between scans is now 1920m, we will start having gaps now and this close to the map resolution any frames that take a little longer because ksp does something like save or unpack something or mapsat saves the map or applies texture changes you will have a good chance of getting gaps from these longer frames

And since our frame now takes 19.2ms avg to finish our framerate drops to 52.1 fps

now say you do the last thing again same settings timewarp, speed over ground but you are using a less powerful pc.

Now your frame takes say 27ms to finish with everything and mapsat scanline. now the distance between scans at 50x timewarp is 2700m thats a very noticable and guaranteed gap between scans, and the fps on this weaker system with these setting would be 37 fps.

Assuming perfect polar orbit:

So the higher the scan resolution longitudinally the bigger the distance between 2 scans/lower resolution latitudinally

Fps (except csv) shouldn't change too much between different timewarps as it just does x measurements per frame.

Fps will change with increased/decreased scan resolution, the lower the fps the bigger the gap between scans becomes again.

In many cases there is simply no need to for hundreds of measuring points in one scanline, not even csv scanning will track such small distances on planets the size of kerbin with just 2 decimal places in the gps coordinates (0.01° longitude on kerbins equator is 1047.2m)

CSV writing excluded, as said before this has not been properly looked at since 3.x and the small maps and different beam code, it's slow and buffers way too many coordinates before writing causing really laggy and long writing sequences.

I would suggest changing the value with increments of 10 or 20 not 100s. small changes make a difference.

Don't try values like 10000 unless you own a machine at CERN.

My old laggy grid used 1678, 1678 dots in a scanline though will just be a useless waste of performance for no gain though.

I hope this clarifies it a bit, if not I will try it again after I had sleep.

[Scottiths]

I understand its a dev release, but it seems that other people are getting it to work. I took the zip file and put it in the game data folder. I get the parts in the VAB, but when I launch there is just a multi colored pixel cluster box where ISA icon should be. If I click on it it brings up the ISA menu, but the screen is solid gray with sliders around it.

What did I do wrong in the instillation process?

[Innsewerants]

Im not sure about this, cause I dont have any lags when writing raw data only. Also with a resolution of 500 and orbits > 200 i do not have any lags when writing raw data. But whenever I activate the visual scan with resolution > 300, I got lags. I had the same effect on 3.34 and its reproducable. I dont know if this matters, my raw data will be stored on a very fast SSD.

Do you know why the ISAMapGen crashes when generating maps with 36000x18000 pix? I tried this, cause of this would be the maximum resolution of the map and every pixel would be 0.01degree, but everytime I try it, the exe crashes.

Another question about the csv, the raw data stores every dot twice or multiple if it's passed more than one time, right?

Did some more test on mun now. Okay, it's not the optical scan or the raw data. I tried a resolution of 500 with an orbit of 300. When scanning optical only I do not have any lag. When writing raw data only, I also do not have any lag. But whenever I do an optical scan and writing raw data, it's lagging like hell. To do both at once, I need to take the resolution down to 250, then I'm able to do both at once without loosing performance.

this could simply be because a resolution of 300 results in less duplicate results, there's a filter, this would then actually have more data per write to the csv file than the 500 setting because a lot of those will be duplicates that are filtered out before writing the file.

The real problem is it's waiting for 5 seconds and dumping that data (10s of thousands of lines) in one go.

I had secretly hoped to drop the csv feature, filewriting is slow. As said csv writing is on the list to look at, for now it's not recommended to use it. Consider it known to be broken.

Also the raw data without main scanning is just as fast as not scanning at all because csv scanning is part of scanning routine as a whole, it doesn't get called when scanning in general is off. I'll fix the button lights to reflect this.

Edited May 24, 2013 by Innsewerants

[Schnatta]

Ah, okay. Thanks for all the detailled information. Let me say, that I'm very happy with the whole Addon as it is. I can do optical scans and later in another session raw data scans. The lag is not really a problem, cause with this new version everyone is able to change some settings for good map resolution settings and good performance. And this is much better tahn in any version before. You really did a great job.

Even if you dislike the csv function, please keep the raw data function in later versions. Its one of the mainfeatures that I'm able to create high detailled maps beside the KSP client or import raw data in other tools.

[Scottiths]

Ok, I got it working. This is amazing! Great work!

For anyone who had the same problem is me, don't rename any of the folders (I renamed the outermost folder to ISA Mapsat).