3Star A 3D Starmapper V1.1 Copyright 1997 Nicholas Law Manual Table of contents: 1.0 Overview 1.1 Copyright / Legal 2.0 Running 3Star 2.1 System requirements 2.2 Installing 2.3 Files 2.4 Command line switches 3.0 Using 3Star 3.1 Basic operations (rotating) 3.2 Icon operations 3.21 Display options (zooming, # of stars displayed, line range, labels) 3.22 Individual star operations 3.23 Saving settings & screens 4.0 Miscellaneous Information 4.1 Performance Issues 4.2 Known bugs 4.3 Contacting the author 1.0 Overview 3Star allows the user to interactively rotate over 300 stars in real time 3D Features include: ž Every star accurately placed to the limit of the Gliese 3.0 catalogue ž Draw lines between stars of a specified distance ž Display only stars under a certain magnitude ž Complete icon driven interface - no keyboard input except to quit! ž Save settings & any screen ž Every star can be labelled on screen ž Center the screen on any star ž Zoom out to 100 light years from the sun, zoom in to 0.5 light years ž View detailed information on any diplayed star ž SVGA 256 colour graphics ž Must be run in a Windows DOS box. 1.1 Copyright / Legal This manual, all included files, and the 3Star program are all Copyright (c) 1997 Nicholas Law This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2.0 Running 3Star Type 3STAR in the directory in which you put the files. 3Star needs some kind of DPMI host so it should be run in a Windows DOS box. To quit, press 2.1 System Requirements 3Star should run well on this class of system: ž Pentium 75 or better ž 4mb Memory. N.B. A DPMI host is required! This means unless you are running QEMM or suchlike the program MUST be run in a Windows DOS box (preferably Windows 95). ž SVGA Graphics card - 640x480 in 256 colours. Vesa 2.0 required ž Mouse 2.2 Installing Just place everything in the zip file into the same directory and 3Star should find everything. 2.3 Files The following files should be in the zip file: ž 3STAR.EXE.................The executable file ž 3STAR.DAT.................Data file for all the graphics ž STARS.DAT.................Star positional data ž 3STAR.TXT.................This manual 2.4 Command line switches To run 3Star, type 3STAR in the director where you placed it (wow!). The only command line switch is /RESET This deletes any previously saved settings and should return your copy to just-installed condition. 3.0 Using 3Star My advice is simply to experiment. The manual is here if you cannot work out how to do something, but you cannot break anything by trying it out. 3.1 Basic Operations Rotating the stars: To rotate around the displayed stars, hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse in the direction you want to go around the stars. 3.2 Icon Operations This is an ASCII approximation (very approximate!) of the icon layout in 3Star: ŚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄæ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ 1 ³ 2 ³ 3 ³ 4 ³ 5 ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ĆÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ 6 ³ 7 ³ 8 ³ 9 ³ 10 ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ĄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĮÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĮÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĮÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄĮÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄŁ 3.21 Display options Icons 1 & 2: These control zooming. To use hold the left mouse button down on the icon. The big 'plus' (#1) zooms in, the minus (#2) zooms out. If the zooming seems a little slow at first, do not fret - it will accelerate! Icons 3 & 4: These icons control the upper magnitude limit of the displayed stars. This has the effect of altering the number of stars the program displays. 3Star is initially set to display a relatively small number of stars - to increase the magnitude limit click and hold the left mouse button on the icon with many stars (#3). To decrease the limiting magnitude do the same with the icon with few stars (#4). Icons 6 & 7: These control the range of the lines drawn. Initially no lines are displayed (a range of 0). To increase the line range hold the left mouse button on the icon with lots of lines (#6). Lines will be drawn from the central star to all stars which are in view and in range of the lines. The range is shown in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. To reduce the line range, click and hold on the icon with fewer lines (#7). Icon 9: This controls the labels displayed on screen. If labels are shown (default) all stars within 30 light years of the camera are labelled. Click the icon once with the left mouse button to remove labels, click again to show labels. 3.22 Individual Star Operations To center the screen on another star, click icon #8 once then click on the star you want to center. If you click on the icon and change your mind, simply click on the icon again to cancel. To view detailed information on a star, click on it with the left mouse button. 3.23 Saving settings and screens If you want to quit the program but want it to return to exactly its present state the next time it is run, click icon #5. If the save is successful "settings saved" will appear below the icons. If you want to remove the settings you saved, either save new ones over the previous settings or run 3Star with the /RESET option to return all options to just-installed status. To save a screen, click icon #10. The screen (without the icons) will be saved in the current directory in the next available file name of the form SCREENXXX.PCX. The filename is displayed after saving is complete. 4.0 Miscellaneous Information 4.1 Performance Issues N.B. V1.1 is a significant upgrade on V1.0, with a speed increase of over 100% on almost all systems. I have only tested 3Star on Pentium class computers on which it runs at a reasonable speed with all stars displayed. Other CPUs may run significantly faster or slower. These are the main strategies for speeding up 3Star: ž Reduce the number of stars by adjusting the upper magnitude limit downwards. This should give the greatest (and easiest) speed improvement. ž Do not display labels. Having to draw an extra string for each star really slows the program down! 4.2 Known bugs The only currently known bug is that some stars may appear black due the occasionally odd way the Gliese 3.0 star catalogue gives spectral data. If you notice this, please send me the star name! 4.3 Contacting the author E-mail me at: 3star@dial.pipex.com WWW Page: http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/road/xpa18/index.shtml