CompuServe Thread

I got (sort off) the tracking thing to work. I still have to work several problems. First of all, for simplicity sake, I am calculating everything centered around the Sun (heliocentric). This is showing the dance of the planets, comets, asteroids and whatever else you want in the middle but it will be hard to give you anything beyond our solar system. The second problem is scaling. 3DS won't handle numbers that large (it's not 3DS's fault, Gary never imagined someone would actually try to render the universe in 1:1 scale…). Because everything is real, you obviously can't see everything. I have to be able to define some scaling and a better way of entering data. I can't way to get a hold of the IPAS code… I actually have two "variations" of the main program. In one, I've added an option to read standard NORAD data files to track simple objects orbiting around the Earth. This is Geocentric and works pretty much like the stuff you have. The second one you have to supply an ASCII file with several data items to localize an object (Standard Epoch, inclination, mean anomalies, etc.). This one works in reverse. They are plotted centered at the Sun. Right now it's a pain to create several DXF path files. I want to be able to create the objects and their paths all at once. Things I should be able to do when IPAS R3 arrives. This will allow to define all sorts of things. Even ballistics (Alec will love this one, even though Tridents are more likely than a mere .38! Who knows, he may be hired to reconstitute the apocalypse… <g>). By the way, just for fun, create a path for the Sun and another for the moon. Date the thing for July 11 1992 and tell the program you are in Hawaii. Attach a spot light to the Sun path and an opaque sphere to the moon. Give them the right proportion (400×400) and run your very own eclipse! Link a camera to the Sun looking down at the Earth and see the Eclipse path!