[Kstars-devel] KStars vs Stellarium - Graphics

[Akarsh Simha]

Hi

> > 1. Stellarium has a different computation for relating limiting
> > magnitude to zoom factor. If I point my binoculars to Lyra, I should
> > probably be seeing more stars than KStars currently shows from a dark
> > site. I think Stellarium shows far too many stars, but that seems to
> > look better.

> IMO this code and the UI for it will need to change after you extend the
> catalog.  IMO there should be just one slider called "star density". For
> example, for any fixed position of this slider, KStars could try to draw 
> a fixed number of stars per pixels^2.  If we did this "right" then the 
> slider could actually be calibrated in units of stars/100 pixels^2 or 
> such.

+1 for this kind of a slider. I'd love that idea...

I find the lack of star density even when the faint mag when zoomed in
is 10.0

> It's an interesting problem.  If the stars were all in just one list
> (no trixels) then it would be easy to solve it exactly by knowing how
> many pixels were in the current star map which would then tell us the
> exact number of stars we want to draw to achieve the specified star
> density.  It could turn out that this is not what people want and
> actual magnitude thresholds are more intuitive, but that is part of
> what makes the problem interesting.  I still think a single "star 
> density" slider is the way to go even if it is not calibrated.

Agreed.

> > 2. Stellarium draws real-coloured stars by drawing a disk
> > proportional to the size, with fuzzy edges. We have two solid
> > colours, while they implement some sort of gradual transition. Is
> > this possible to implement?
> 
> They get this effect easily because they are using the OpenGL interface.

Can't we manage it with Qt? Or will the overhead be too much?

Regards
Akarsh
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kstars-devel/attachments/20080606/8b766431/attachment.pgp