1Satellites Plugin for Stellatium
2================================
3
4INTRODUCTION
5============
6
7This feature has been requested so many times it's not funny.  Several
8people have posted to the developer list saying they would like to have a
9go and then the Yeti seem to get them and we never hear another thing.
10
11Well, dagnammit, I thought I'd have a go.
12
13Projection is done from the azimuth/elevation data which the SDP4/SGP4
14library handily produces.  Probably not the "right" way to do it, but
15it works and I am lazy.
16
17
18TODO
19====
20
21Things originally planned for 0.8.0 that didn't get finished:
22+ Fixing the main configuration file subkey format
23+ Editable satellite descriptions
24+ TLE set validation/parsing with regular expressions (I have partial. --BM)
25+ GUI for manual addition of satellites, including TLE entry
26+ GUI for manual addition of comm frequences
27+ Reuse of downloaded update files for the current mechanism of satellite adding
28  - Option to download fresh files
29+ Move the current satellite import from the GUI to the core class (makes easier
30plug-in GUI porting)
31
32+ extracting orbit epoch from TLE and adding an option to hide satellites
33outside a range around the epoch
34+ GUI: color-picker control
35+ picking default and individual hint color (and orbit color? was that
36a separate thing?)
37+? option which info fields to display (or at least, just for the "extra" fields)
38+? re-organize configuration file options? (group flags with a "flag_" prefix?)
39
40Matthew's notes:
41+ Rendering of the actual satellite, not just a hint/label
42  - calculation of brightness, eclipse etc.
43  - iridium flares?
44+ gravity labels
45
46Longer term:
47+ proper 3d positions (when SolarSystem is refactored so we can see
48  satellite cloud from the moon / other bodies.
49
50
51BUILDING THE PLUGIN
52===================
53
54Please note, these instructions are only directly applicable to Linux.
55Windows and OSX targets will probably require modification of the
56CMakeLists.txt file.
57
580.  Install and build the Bazaar version of Stellarium as per the
59instructions on the Stellarium wiki:
60
61  http://stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Compilation_on_Linux
62
631.  Set the environment variable STELROOT to the root of the Stellarium
64source tree.  The Stellarium build directory is expected to be:
65
66  $STELROOT/builds/unix
67
682.  Create a sub-directory builds/unix and change into that directory.
69
703.  Run:
71
72  cmake ../..
73  make
74  make install
75
76If all goes well, the relevant files should be built and copied to your
77~/.stellarium/modules directory.
78
79
80ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS
81================
82
83Re-write of orbital calculation routines by Jose Luis Canales, added
84Autumn 2010.
85
86Original SGP4/SDP4 implementation taken from KTrack codebase. There were
87some minor modifications to prevent conflicts with #defines and enums
88from the core Stellarium code, but nothing significant.
89
90The code which uses the SGP4/SDP4 library was copied more or less
91verbatim from KTrack up to the point of getting the alt/azi and other
92data out.
93
94
95