[Kstars-devel] Constellation figures

[Jason Harris]

Hello,

Someone (I believe it was Milton, but can't check right now) expressed 
interest in adding constellation "figures" to the display.  These would be 
actual drawings of the mythical object represented by the constellation, in 
addition to the stick-figures we currently have.  One concern about this has 
always been the difficulty of representing the figures and making them 
"stretch" properly on the sky.

I just had an idea that we could draw silhouettes of the constellation figure, 
rather than line drawings.  This would not only be much simpler, but I think 
it would give us sort of a unique "look" compared to other programs that 
provide constellation figures.  The silhouette would be like a shadow of the 
mythical person/creature/object represented in the constellation, and would 
be very similar to the sky in color.  I think it would make the display look 
less crowded than line drawings would.

Another idea related to constellations: we can highlight objects with a user 
label; what about highlighting constellations too?  The highlight could be 
done in a number of ways, but I was thinking in particular about drawing the 
constellation boundary with a different color than the rest.  An obvious 
candidate for toggling the highlight is with the constellation-name item in 
the popup menu.  It isn't selectable now, but it could be made active.

Any thoughts?

Jason

-- 
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KStars: KDE Desktop Planetarium
http://edu.kde.org/kstars