[Kstars-devel] Binary file format for NOMAD

[James Bowlin]

On Tue July 15 2008, Akarsh Simha wrote:
> I'll start working on the 16 byte structure now, and I don't mind
> backtracking if someone has a better idea.

Everything you suggested sounds good to me.  I do have one question.
Will all the stars in deepstars.dat use this smaller format?  If so,
will we lose some information from the TYCHO-2 stars?

If the answer to all of the above is yes, then the TYCHO-2 to NOMAD
transition will set a natural break-point for where to split the data
when we implement multiple meshes to optimize performance across zoom
levels.  The TYCHO-2 data would go on a course or medium mesh while the
NOMAD data would go on fine and extra-fine meshes.

In addition to optimizing performance across zoom levels, multiple 
meshes will also allow us to optimize the binary files.  


-- 
Peace, James